view recent in featured proams >> the united states holocaust museumas undertaken a rearch project and it is in book form. this is volume one ofhe research project geoffrey megargee is the editor. what is this proct? >> this is an encyclopedia of all the difrent camps and ghettos that the germans during the nazi period and all of their allies ran. >> host: how many have you found? >> guest: we have found within the lumes were going to have about 20,00 >> host: 20,000 camps? were you surprised at the number? >> guest: yes we were. when i came on board in 2000 the people who created the project, historians themselves have estimated that there were about five to 7,000 sites we would be looking at. thisurned out to be one of those instances in which a lot

of different people run the wod had been doing research in their own little rners a nobody of the the numrs together so when we started looking to secondary sources in contacting historians and finding out about different categories and camps the numbers started to build and within three of fo years we were up to 20,000. >> host: what arehe different categories? >> guest: the big ones are e concentration camps, the house which, kacou, the names of people kw plus the minisub camps around them and tt is what this first volume deals with. each ofse places had something like 124 subcamps associated witthat, the places where the prisoners stayed and worked. bennie have a big categories would be preserved for calps and in forced labor camps a ghettos. >> host: whaar some examples of a forced labor camp? >> guest: in addition to the concentration camps which were more or less punitive, punitive

in nature, the germans also broughmillions of ople into nazi germany sply to support the war economy. they weren't being punished. usually not jewish. the jewish were put into a separate system, but the forced labor camps were strictly to support this warconomy, to allow germany manufacture of the arms needed to fight the war. >> host: you also talked to bill p.o.w. camps. those are chronicled in these encyclopedia is also? >> guest: they will be, yes. >> host: how many of those have been found so far? >> guest: we are looking at about 000 mayhan p.o.w. camps. the p.o.w. camps also had some camps and the numbers are astounding and well beyond our ability to cover the >> host:ou menon dachau. how ws it developed tt dachau would have 124 subcamp's?

>> guest: this was again a function mostly of the war economy. some of theoncentration camps such as mohelsn for example were originally created in pt to serve economic ends. it had a corey nearby for mining stone and coring sto that would be used in nazi the grand planning for pull inorer was exampl but over time, especially as he got into 43 and even more so in 44 as the warconomy needed more and more labor, the ess that ran the scam started to farm out their prisoners, rent them out literally to military industrial concerns and they decided pretty quicklthe most efficient way to do that with the rackley have camps at the worksites so these systems of some camps and develop from there. >> ht: how my people do you estimate for processed

through these 20,000 camps? >> guest: we don't really have an overall estimate. ere were at the height of the concentration camsyst there were about 750,000 people in that. that of one-- that would have been the beginning of 45 before they began to retreat. of course thats not the total number that went through there. that would probably total i am guessing to some extent but it least a couple million, probably more than that. there were something like 10 million force labors in germany if i recall correctly. p.o.w.'s probably a similar number so you are looking at tens of millions of people. >> host:ow did the germans developed the system? was it done by one bureaucracy or was it just sporadic? >> guest: no, i use t word system as well for lack of anything bettebu strictly speaking you could not call up the system. each set of caips developed more

or less on its own. th first volume of dhe encyclopedia covers the early camps, about 100 of those that developed in the first few months aer the nazis came to power and then from those the concentration camps evolve said this was the sort of punitive si. p.o.w.amps were norl in the war and forced labor camps came intolay as the war economy got going and they started running out of workers and then tre were various specialized smaller categories of camps for their own special purpose >> host: but, nobody in charge berlin, who was in charge of setting all these up? >>uest: no, of run by differ bureaucracies. as a matter of fact it was in a sense part of the nis system for each beaurocracy to want to have its own camps. wd d't he firm evidence of this but i think this was something tt for a lot of nazi bureaucrats indicated that they

had power. i have my own body of prisoners herehat i control and i have my own purpose for which i have camps. >> host: whator the first camps tt the nazis developed? >> guest: these are what historians called the early camps. they were developeamong ad hoc basis by local authnrities and in some cases the ess or the locapolice to handle political isoners, communists and socialists especially at the beginning, people that the nazis contend-- considered archenemies and were determine to eliminate. theyid not eliminate most of them physically but they put them in these camps and tortured them and put them to work and more less made sure they were not going to be active members. >> host: where does the 1942 final solution meetingit into all of this? did that develop more camps? >> gst: i don't believe that

the conference developed more camps directly. this was really an implementation meeting. the decision for the final solution had beemade in most historians aee on that and there were already, there was already one camp in operation and others coming online. i am talking about extermination centers now that were designed solely for the purpose of killing people. the conference was, it was hydric who was in crge of the main oice. itas his opportunity to get these bureaucrats together and say i am in charge of this effort to wipe out the jewish d you have to fall in line so this meeting is to sort out any bureaucric obstacles to that. >> host: what have you discovered about life in these camps at t various levels? >> guest: it varied. a eory they think more than most people realize.

if you were an english priner of war, you were to some exnt athe top of the heirarchy. the nazis did not consider you to be racially dangerous. you were as close to "aerian" as anyone was going to get and also the nazis feed to some extent the treatment to their own p.o.w.'s might be negativef they mistreated americans and british so you put those things together in those prisoners relatively well. i want to emphasize that word relatily. some people were abused horribly, some people were separated them put into concentration camps but most of them could recei red cross parcels through most of the war and they did all right. at the other end of the ectrum, or even just within the p.o.w. community if you look of the soviet p.o.w.'s the

germans captured three and one-third soviet p.o.w.s in the first year so three-point-- about two and one-third million were dead by the spring of 1942 and several hundred shot up right because they were communistsoward jews, more often kier forced labor, starvation, exposure, disease, simply being neglected so that was the other endf the p.o.w. spectrum. you can go y sense farther with that in the jews in the extermination centers who were simply kild. >> host: how many extermination cters have you discovered? >> guest: we counted six. because we of this narrow definition of an extermination center of that its primary purpose was to kill, we avoid the term death camps for example because that gets applieto a lot of plac but the purpose was not primarily to kill people so we counts auschwitz,

treblinka and the other one is escaping me at the moment. daka was the concentration camp. >> host: really? was in dachau? >> guest: political prisoners that first. this was the first of the ss conctration camps. it was created along with the other early camps in the beginning of 1933 and tn when the ss took over the early camps and 34 and 35 a close most of th down in the cab dachau open and they oped a few oths in dachau became one of their model camps. it held political prisoners at first but increasinglyll of the different groups that the germans brought into their concentration camp system,, litical prisoners of various stripes, resistance fighters anyone who tried to buck the system really could become a concentration cam@ priner.

>> host: you ao talk about the different ghettos. how do you define the ghetto and how many of those have you discovered? >> guest: for the purposes of the encyclopedia we have had to use a rather practical approach to it. a ghetto is the place where jews were concentrated usually in an existing jewish neighborhood or in some part of theity or town prior to their murder. they were again created on sort of an adoc basis as the germans advance these word when they started in 1940 in poland but especially as they advance into the soviet union in 1941. they needed to do something with al of these jews. they weren't sure quite what they were going to do with them in the end yet, but in the meantime they needed to concentrate them and is served three purposes, to concentrate them and keep them under

control. they were not given a whole lot in terms of food or medical care, so lot of em were killed off in that way. several of them, 1.2 million or so died within the ghettos and it also, keeping them under control and killing them off with the main thing but it also allowed them to work for the general war economy to some extent. >> host: how many haveou discovered? >> guest: about 1200. >> host: how did you do this research? >> guest: we have not done all that much of it. we depend large on outside contributors. saying that there was 30% of this first volume that we had to writer sells mostly from secondary sources, from paul the resources and that proportion will probablincrease as the golan because most of these categories have not been thoroughly research. we have right now three or four people who are working for us who were riding in trees or

doing research for in trees. it is not a huge team to be doing something of this scale but over time we were able to mana i for the most part we depend on local experts. with volume one, for instance with auschwitz and the coentration camp we had people in the memorial sites, in the museum's there who volteered to write all this of camp entries for those places. in other instances we might come across seone who knew about one camp and he or she had made that his or her parcular study. they knew about it and they could write that one ent f us. >> ht: how long what an entry be? >> guest: for a main concentration camp were looking at about 2500 words. that is about ten double spaced pages and obviously covering a place like dachau or auschwitz is ludicrous in one sense that the know this is not the main

source that people will go to for camps like that. with this of camps and the entries were have del link, about 1250 words. bissette camps are the places that are less well-known. these are the places that are really important for us to document becausenformation on this is not available anywhere el in this serves for one thing to document the suffering of the people who were there and th survivorsave been very impressed that we have been able to do this for them in a sense. it also is a big slap in the face as well and aart of the joi pticularly eoyed. >> host: geoffrey megargee is the editor of this first volume, part one into. how many volumes will be coming out? >> guest: seven. >> host: seven total? and a specific volume is about--

the specific volume that is out now is about the subjectatter. >> guest: this covers the early concantration camps that i talked about and the main concentration camp system, the big names in their subcamps. >> host: how about future volumes? >> guest: they are organized by future camp. we thoug that would ban opportunity-- volume three camps run by the germanilitary, volume for camps run by germans allies and satellite states. five will deal with another set of camps under another branch of the ss. six will do with forced labor camps not under the ss run by private firms and other government organizations and seven will be sort of a catch all and because ididn't f in anywhere else. >> host:ere the folks who did a lot of your research, did they find things, anything in

the german archives? >> guest: yes, mosof the information. >> host: is it well documented, these camps? >> guest: itepends on the camp but gerally yes. >> host: what kinds of documents with you find? >> guest: we would have documents settingp the camps, documents testifying to who was sent there, how many people, what kinds of prisoners, what kind of work they did, things of that nature and then we have also prisoner testimony about what life was like in the camps, what kind of treatment they received, people that were lled in that sort of thing. host: what is your coal th theyclopedia? >> guest: it is really twofold. one is to provide basic information about as manplaces as we possibly can so we have the series of research questions that we ask eac of ou contributors to try to answer. what kinds o prisoners were there, how many, who ran the

place, who guarded did, what was its purpose and what kind of work was done in for what companies? how did people live, h did people die? for their trials of camp personnel after the w? that is one goal. the other goal is to provide foundation for further research so each of these entries as a source section that discusses where the autr found the information that is in he. it serves as a starting point for anyone who wants to try to ntinue on and izzy can see we also have footnotes to particularly important points with each entry. host: how lg did you been working onhis project? >> guest: i've been working on it for ten years in january. >> host: how much longer will you go? >> guest: we hoping to get the whole thing done by 2018. we have been working on various volumes in tandem. we hope every twoears or so after that to come out another one.

>> host: fuji you think oe these? >> gst: well, the people who will purchase them will primarily be libraries because they are expensive. is not something the ordinary rson is going to go out and buy although i have talk to some folks, scholars sunni these reference works and will buy them themselves. >> host: are they available at the newseum? at theeb site? what is your web address? >> guest: hew s holocaust memorial museum.com. >> host: geoffrey megargee is the editor of the entire project but now volume one is out 1933-1945-- "enclopedia of camps and ghettos," 1933-1945. thank you very muc >> bubba's by the university of virginia press and edited by english professor jessica

feldman a ph.d. candidate robert slling. it is called "what ould i read next?." professor feldman where did this project come from and what is it? >> the project actually began in two places. when was i did a short stint in the administration because of, i started to meet many more of my colleagues and i was impressed by the passion about their subjects and their eertise. a friend called me between busine and she said "what should i read next?" "what should i read next?" and she said i don't want to go to a bookstore and take books off the front table. i would like something with subsso together we sort of dreamt up this book and i kw that i had had a sort of wide

range of people like call in. i call t and 70 of my colleagues not just in our science but across the university, to give me a list of books and an explanation of those books. >> host: robert stilling wa involvement? >> guest:he sai actually, i've got this project in mind andt turns out befor coming to the university of virginia i had a little bit of experience in press publishing myself and sally book project that involves helping people find books that they would love and would read was right up my alley both as a graduate student and as someone with a little bit of experience in the book world. >> host: what have you been doing in this project? >> guest: the same thing ssica has been doing. uber together and coming up with a list the faculty we thought were working on really exciting

terial, putting together a listf people forhe project. once t contrutions came in, bringing the book all the way up to the location. >> host: in your chapter called history, memory and politics professor herbert teaco braqn recommend reading gabrielle garcia marquez, 100 years of solitude. what can we learn from that book or what should we learn from the book? >> guest: i.t. mitel 548 into that question particularly, what we ask people to do is to give us a list of five books that cohered in some way and to give us just a few words, 50 words are so aboutach bo and then to write a 750 word essay which for academics is extremely short, talngbout what gave the list its coherence and why they had chosen these books,o

my friend teco brown in the history department has written a contribution having to doith learning about what american history through novels, so it is wonderful that he has years of solitude that is the classic comedy seminal work of magic realism and let american writing, a wonderful book if you haven't read it, and so i think we can learn from it is tt you can you read a novel notches for the interest of the plot and the characters and so forth but when you read itith other novels and start to think abo the kind of history that it is helping to tell it will have even more meaning for you. >> host: professor william quandt recommends when it comes to the iraq war george packer the assassinsagan steve coll, ost wars. >> guest: yeah, one othe things that we tried to do with this book was to bring a kind of depth of experience and

knowlee to a number of fields that there a a few entries in contributions to the book th deal with contemporary issues and we found that these are the people tha really have a thirst for credible information on subjects like this. and ople who are in the field have been, who have a lot of experience teaching these issues to students know whathe good books are d know what is recommended but can also tell you how to read them critically and so professor quantas i think it's an excellent overview of some of the major issues that you would want to know about something like the iraq war but also an injury like that and milar entries on the climate crisis or presents different sides i think and help a reader rt out the information for themselves. >>ost: university of

virginia law profess who is an author herself writes about civil rights literature and books to re and one that she recommends is nancy maclean, freedom not eugh, the opening of the american workplace. why? >> guest: firsof all i should say i think everxone in this book are all academics and she a wonderful historian of american legal history. i should say that i have not read every book recommended in this book. that is going to be burly for my retirement for in the future and partly in the summers when i have a little bit more time, but her book is a fascinating study of the history of the civil-rights movement. >> host: one of your chapters is mathematics, science and technology. how did you come up with these different headings? >> guest: it was interesting. we had so many contributions

at seem to speak to each oer from across the disciplines that first we saw 20 or 30 different dreds pekid group together about illness, about raising children, about responding to arts and the visualorld. and the and we decided broader categories we bette because of the breadth of knowledge for each of the cotributors but also just a breath of their interest and so a category that ties together science, mathematics and technology feels a ltle loose and a little beguine but i thi that is part of what makes the book so rich is each of the contributions touches on so many different areas. >> host: since you are both english pfessors and ph.d. candidates you have a chapter called literatur why ould americans are aone read moby dick,ne of the bks recommended in here by one of the professors? >> guest: iave a lot of answers to that.

rst of all it is very exciting and fascinating t read. i think that a lot of people feel, i read the classics some time agond it was difficult and you know, now i've had enough of it. i think revisiting classics like moby dick if you have read in college or high school can be wonderful. everytime you readed to find something new in it. right read moby dick? professor kotchman gives us a setting for that. what he says in the 1850's when the united states was just on the brink of the civil war it was also creating a national literature so american literature was coming io being as the self-conscious league american literature at the same time as the nation itself was starting to break aparp so reading moby dick along with the scarlet letter, along with the leaves of grass by walt whman, i can give you a sort of new understanding of wha each of

those works is about singly and i also just want to say that the book, we didn try to legislate what would go into the book. we did not give them subject. the book is not encyclopedia. which is sort of happened the way it happened. >> guest: w ask people to touch on the subject tt forecloses to the core of their interests, the things they felt they could convey withashion to readers outside the academy, so when we have someone like thresher coachmen what is it that you love about the literature you are teaching, he said here is this moment right before the civil war when these authors are trying to stitch together an idea of the nation and that is somethin i'm excited about and that is something i can convey to people as t reason to put these assics context, notches to these long arduous works we feel like we need to get through because it is like eating our fiber something good for but

because it gives us some new understanding of our nation and our world. >> guest: i would add to that that some of the entries offer classics. some of the entries offer popular culture. we have something about the classics of american literature but in the same section, we have a whole contribution on latina writers of the past 20 or 30 years, so this isn't a bug that you know is sort of sedney back to classs. it is sending yound lots of different directions and you can choose. >> host: robert stillingdoes it matter, is homer's illya at odyssey still important? >> guest: i think for anyone reading contemporary literature, i think something like the odyssey would be extremely important. in mwn work a deal with a poet that is writing from the

west indies and ricin epic called on a risk that is tying together the world that w think of this globalized or postcolonial by tying it back to this ancie literary tradition. i think every word that you use in a great piece of literature has a memory that the second me in reaches back to preous works so beingble to put those words in context, we have a contributi that actuallyooks specically at five difrent stories out of the metorphosis and inste of five different works, but also, and that is from, th contribution comes of a class in which he teaches the importance of old good throughout the history of art and visual arts and also literature so to understand where we are now, it is helpful to go back to where we were then. host: do you contribute to this bomk? >> gst: we decided not