Today, voices of Terezin, the Nazi concentration camp used to divert attention from the final solution. We'll hear about how prisoners held under brutal conditions created art and music amid the horrors of the holocaust
Plus, what happens when a protest movement professing all-or-nothing absolutism splits in two? We'll find out how a splinter group of vegan activists toned down their goals and built a powerful machine for change.
Listen to the full show.
Voices of Terezin
In June of 1944, shortly after the allies landed at Normandy, the international Red Cross visited a ghetto and concentration camp in what was then Czechoslovakia - a camp named Terezin. The delegation was shown a carefully crafted lie - a Nazi-created diorama showing prisoners treated in relative comfort: the streets lined with fresh plantings and newly painted homes, a ghetto, but one which encouraged and supported a rich cultural life, complete with a performance venue and newly created works of classical music.
Some 30,000 Jews died at Terezin, under horrible conditions masked during by the Nazis during that Red Cross visit. Many thousands more were sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. And while few of the residents of Terezin would survive the Holocaust, their voices, the plays and poems and operas they created and performed there, live on.
“The Voices of Terezin” is a series of performances, lectures, and film showings that's running all this month at Keene State College. Among those speaking is Mark Ludwig, a scholar on music and the Holocaust, member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and executive director and founder of the Terezin Music Foundation.
"If You Don't Love Maps, We Can't Be Friends"
We've been talking a lot about maps lately - we recently heard about a collection of maps illustrating many facets of New York City's culture. Tomorrow, we'll hear about how bias plays out in mapping the Dakota Access Pipeline - now the site of a widespread protest. As it turns out, we're not the only the only ones interested in cartography these days - Roman Mars of the podcast 99% Invisible is a map-lover too.
You can listen to this story again at PRX.org.
The Vegan Schism
Before it was embraced by celebrities, chefs and an estimated 16 million Americans, veganism meant radicalism - like the animal rights activists who throw red paint on women wearing fur.
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A number of vegans have labored to distance themselves from that image - setting off a schism that's divided the movement for 15 years. One camp follows the all-or-nothing imperative to eliminate the commodification and consumption of animals and animal products. The other is working to make strategic, incremental changes in food policy, production and preferences.
Chase Purdy is a New York based journalist who writes about food for Quartz. That's where we found his article about the divergent paths of the vegan movement.
Unraveling the NFL Ratings Drop
112 million people gathered to watch last year's Super Bowl - that's more than twice the number tuning in to see the Cubs win the 2016 World Series. Still, it's a slight dip from Superbowl 2014' s ratings and that slip has continued this season in a big way. There are no shortage of theories as to why - from election coverage to the NFL's tarnished record on player safety and conduct.
Bob Ryan is a longtime sportswriter, who shared his 10 Theories Why NFL TV Ratings Are Down in The Boston Globe.
