Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine — a podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society.

This week, I want to try something unusual. Instead of telling a parable, I want you to close your eyes — unless you’re driving — and imagine something with me.

Imagine a stage. The air is heavy, the floor cold beneath bare feet. In the beginning, the people stand tall, shoulders squared, breath steady. The lights are soft, the music calm. But with each step, the bodies bend, the air tightens, the sound sharpens — until the dance collapses into silence.

Genocide is not sudden. It is not abstract. Genocide is a dance. Ten steps. Ten positions of the human body. Each one more bent, more burdened, more broken than the last. A choreography of cruelty, rehearsed over years, until  ...