Monday, June 11, 2018

A Conversation with Historian Edgar Feuchtwanger About What it was Like to be a Jewish Child Who Lived Across the Street From Hitler


This week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show features two guests.

Professor Edgar Feuchtwanger is a Jewish historian who grew up across the street from Adolph Hitler and witnessed the rise of the Nazism and its evil firsthand. Professor Feuchtwanger shares the memories of that dark time from a child's perspective and with a historian's insight in his new book Hitler, My Neighbor: Memories of a Jewish Childhood, 1929-1938.

On this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Edgar Feuchtwanger recounts what it was like to, literally, see Hitler on a regular basis, how his father was sent to Dachau, his memories of Kristallnacht, and the ways that the German people so quickly embraced Hitler and the Nazis. Professor Feuchtwanger also offers a chilling warning for the American people (and the world) in the Age of Trump and the rise of right-wing fascists and authoritarians around the world: Wake up!

Psychiatrist Dr. David Reiss also stops by the virtual bar and salon this week to discuss the suicide of Anthony Bourdain and to help Chauncey process his anger towards someone whose work he admired and that he viewed as one cool white soul brother.

During this week's podcast, Dr. Reiss explains why a rich and successful person who is beloved around the world would kill themselves and how suicide is a type of extreme mental state that is different from "depression". Dr. Reiss also shares how he tries to help his own patients who are thinking of taking their own lives.

At the end of this week's installment of the podcast Chauncey shares some of Anthony Bourdain's best quotes and life wisdom.

This week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show with Edgar Feuchtwanger and David Reiss can be downloaded from Libsyn and also listened to here.


No comments: