Dialogues in Holocaust Studies and the Second World War

Ari Barbalat hosts long-form interviews with scholars who have just published new books about the Holocaust and World War II. This is the academic end of the spectrum -- the guests are historians, political scientists, and researchers who have spent years on their subjects, and the conversations go deep. Episodes run anywhere from 45 minutes to nearly two hours, which gives authors the space to actually explain their arguments rather than compress everything into sound bites. Barbalat holds a PhD in International Relations from UCLA and also hosts several shows on the New Books Network, so he knows how to ask questions that draw out the substance without getting lost in jargon. Recent episodes have covered topics like survival under Nazi and Communist regimes, refugee experiences, and the specific mechanisms of persecution across occupied Europe. The show started in late 2024 and has put out 19 episodes so far, with new ones arriving regularly through early 2026. It is still building an audience -- no ratings on Apple Podcasts yet -- but the quality of the conversations is consistently high. If you are the kind of listener who finishes a WW2 documentary and immediately wants to read the books it referenced, this podcast basically does that work for you. It sits at the intersection of current scholarship and accessible conversation, and there is genuinely nothing else quite like it in the Holocaust podcast space right now.