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Jan Borowicz, "Perverse Memory and the Holocaust: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Polish Bystanders" (Routledge, 2024)
Today I interviewed Jan Borowicz about Perverse Memory and the Holocaust: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Polish Bystanders (Routledge, 2024). "The assumptions of my book rely on a simple thesis: indifference to violence is impossible and that the primal scene for Polish culture is the experience of Nazism. In Poland we have still a humanitarian crisis by our border. And there is a tiny minority of local and non-local activists who sacrifice themselves and who give help to the people that are dying in the forests, especially during the wintertime. And there are people who live nearby and live day to day-by-day helping the helping the people crossing even and crossing the border and they're harassed and victims of police brutality. And then I had a very strange thought that now I can understand what happened during the during the war and during the Holocaust where exactly this where exactly this happened. And people who deal with Holocaust history and Holocaust memory had the same association, same analogy, that this is somehow and gruesomely very, very similar. And it struck me, the thought that now I understand because as if I was not entirely sure or not entirely certain if I believed it and in the first place. My book is about denial and disavowal. Knowing something and not knowing at the same time." – Jan Borowicz from the interview Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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1:15:10
Alex Storozynski, "Spies In My Blood: A Polish Family’s Secret Fight Against Nazis & Communists" (Polestar-Media, 2025)
Spies In My Blood: A Polish Family’s Secret Fight Against Nazis & Communists (Polestar-Media, 2025) is the true story of two brothers raised in New York by WWII exiles and their journey to Poland. Each takes a different path to infiltrate the Communist secret police on a mission to uncover the truth about their family of soldiers, spies, and assassins. Which brother would go into the family business?Alex Storozynski was the first in his family born in the United States, a new leaf on the family tree. When he set out to find his roots in Poland during the Cold War, his Mama stitched secret pockets into boxer shorts where he could hide his cash, passport, and important documents. Before he left to go behind the Iron Curtain, his mother warned him: “Be careful of your brother’s friends.” His big brother George, a banker, told him, “Mama doesn’t want you to go into the family business.”As an aspiring journalist, Storozynski interviewed Polish rock stars, filmmakers, and artists fighting censorship. He navigated the black market and learned to thrive in the surreal and repressive system. He persuaded the Communist government to give him a scholarship to write a doctoral dissertation about the most hated man in Poland, the military regime’s press spokesman, Jerzy Urban. But he asked too many questions.Storozynski attended Urban’s press conferences with American journalists and met underground Solidarity activists trying to overthrow the government. He translated interviews with opposition leaders like Lech Wałesa for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Boston Globe.There’s a Polish saying, “You can’t fool your genes; it’s in your blood.” The Communist secret police (SB) stole Storozynski’s visa and interrogated him. When Senator Ted Kennedy arrived in Warsaw to give The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award to Adam Michnik and the parents of martyred opposition priest Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, Storozynski spent time with the Kennedy clan and taught them to sing Sto Lat (May He Live 100 Years) to the opposition.The SB had enough. After investigating Alex Storozynski, they wrote: “The findings in the case show that he is familiar with the working methods of special services.” Storozynski was declared an “enemy of the state” and banned from Communist Poland.This is the true story of Alex Storozynski’s quest to uncover the nitty-gritty of three generations of spies in his blood.Winston Churchill’s words serve as a stark warning: “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” With the Russian Army again trying to move the border between East and Western Europe, the dormant Cold War has reignited a hot war. Russia’s invasion of sovereign nations and killing of Ukrainians is a grim reminder of the need to avoid repeating history. Motorized terror squads are once again murdering Jews, and civilian bombing deaths are written off as collateral damage. The gravity of the situation cannot be overstated. Alex Storozynski is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, award-winning author, filmmaker, songwriter, and President Emeritus & Chairman of the Board of The Kosciuszko Foundation.Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, military history, War studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, as well as Russian and East European history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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51:12
Charlie English, "The CIA Book Club: The Best-Kept Secret of the Cold War" (Random House, 2025)
For nearly five decades after the Second World War, the Iron Curtain divided Europe, forming the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. No physical combat would take place along this frontier: the risk of nuclear annihilation was too high for that. Instead, the war was fought psychologically. It was a battle for hearts, minds, and intellects. Few understood this more clearly than George Minden, head of a covert intelligence operation known as the “CIA book program,” which aimed to undermine Soviet censorship and inspire revolt by offering different visions of thought and culture.From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden’s “book club” secretly sent ten million banned titles into the East. Volumes were smuggled aboard trucks and yachts, dropped from balloons, hidden aboard trains, and stowed in travelers’ luggage. Nowhere were the books welcomed more warmly than in Poland, where the texts would circulate covertly among circles of like-minded readers, quietly making the case against Soviet communism. Such was the demand for Minden’s books that dissidents began to reproduce these works in the underground. By the late 1980s, illicit literature was so pervasive in Poland that censorship broke down: the Iron Curtain soon followed.Charlie English narrates this tale of Cold War spycraft, smuggling, and secret printing operations for the first time, highlighting the work of a handful of extraordinary people who fought for intellectual freedom—people like Mirosław Chojecki, who suffered beatings, imprisonment, and exile in pursuit of his clandestine mission. The CIA Book Club: The Best-Kept Secret of the Cold War (Random House, 2025) is a story about the power of the printed word as a means of resistance and liberation. Books, it shows, can set you free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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47:32
Catching the China-Europe Express: Logistics, Local Agency & Eurasian Geopolitics in the Polish Borderlands
In this episode, we focus on the often-overlooked geographies of Eurasian connectivity with Dr. Wojciech Kębłowski, whose research brings attention to the Polish border towns of Małaszewicze and Narevka, key yet rarely discussed nodes in global infrastructure networks. As Eurasia undergoes a dramatic reconfiguration—with initiatives like China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor, and numerous regional projects vying for influence—we discuss what happens at the edges. How are logistics nodes developed? Who lives in these nodes of connection, and how do they navigate the shifting tides of global ambition? Our conversation spans local politics, logistics, labor, railway connectivity, and geopolitics, offering a multidimensional view of border hubs where the global meets the local. These sites are not only shaped by supply chain logics but also by mounting geopolitical rivalries, as powers compete for infrastructural influence across continents. Dr. Kębłowski paints a vivid picture of Małaszewicze, once a booming railway town employing over 10,000 people, now economically depressed but still strategically vital. While geopolitical tensions—like the war in Ukraine—have disrupted trade flows, they haven’t derailed Małaszewicze’s importance. The town’s traffic has rebounded, a testament to its logistical centrality. Dr. Kębłowski discussed the hopes of renewal spurred by the BRI and how local leaders have actively tried to position Małaszewicze on the global map—courting Chinese delegations, lobbying Warsaw, and crafting narratives of international relevance. He shares insights into how these symbolic and practical efforts illustrate both the ambitions and the limitations faced by peripheries striving to assert their place in global politics and connectivity networks. GUEST BIO: Wojciech Kębłowski is an urban researcher, photographer, and Assistant Professor in Urban Studies and Planning at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, with affiliations at the Université libre de Bruxelles. He will begin a new professorship at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) in June 2025. His research sits at the intersection of urban, transport, and political geography, and draws on critical social and decolonial theory. It spans three main areas: the political economy and governance of “sustainable” transport, the urban geography of Global China, and alternatives to capitalist urbanism, including circular economy and degrowth practices. Wojciech’s research is global in scope, with fieldwork and collaborations in diverse cities in Western Europe (Aubagne, Brussels, Luxembourg, Helsinki, Madrid), Eastern Europe (Sopot, Wrocław, Tallinn), China (Chengdu) and Cuba (Santiago). He uses a range of qualitative methods and is interested in photography as a research tool and a creative practice. Wojciech is involved in several international research projects, including LiFT (on fare-related mobility transitions), CARIN-PT (on flexible and on-demand transport), and previously led PUTSPACE and CIRCITY, focused on public transport and circular economies, respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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58:34
David G. Williamson, "Poland Betrayed: The Nazi-Soviet Invasions of 1939" (Pen & Sword, 2011)
After staging a mock attack at Gleiwitz, Germany unleashed its blitzkrieg on Poland on September 1, 1939. Two week later, Soviet forces streamed into the beleaguered country from the east. By early October, Poland had fallen. In a vivid narrative that follows the invading armies from the battle at Westerplatte to the siege of Warsaw, David Williamson takes a fresh look at the opening campaign of World War II, shattering enduring myths and misconceptions and giving voice to the men -- German, Soviet, and Polish -- who did the fighting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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