Fire in the Big House
America’s Deadliest Prison Disaster
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Fire in the Big House
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Narrated by:
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Marlin May
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By:
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Mitchel P. Roth
About this listen
On April 21, 1930, the day after Easter, some rags caught fire under the Ohio Penitentiary’s dry and aging wooden roof shortly after inmates had returned to their locked cells after supper. In less than an hour, 320 men who came from all corners of Prohibition-era America and from as far away as Russia had succumbed to fire and smoke in what remains the deadliest prison disaster in United States history.
Within 24 hours, moviegoers were watching Pathé’s newsreel of the fire, and in less than a week, the first iteration of the weepy ballad “Ohio Prison Fire” was released. The deaths brought urgent national and international focus to the horrifying conditions of America’s prisons - at the time of the fire, the Ohio Penitentiary was at almost three times its capacity. Yet, amid darkening world politics and the first years of the Great Depression, the fire receded from public concern.
In Fire in the Big House, Mitchel P. Roth does justice to the lives of convicts and guards and puts the conflagration in the context of the rise of the Big House prison model, local and state political machinations, and American penal history and reform efforts. The result is the first comprehensive account of a tragedy whose circumstances - violent unrest, overcrowding, poorly trained and underpaid guards, unsanitary conditions, inadequate food - will be familiar to prison watchdogs today.
The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
“A remarkable achievement.” (Seán McConville, Queen Mary University of London)
“An excellent contribution to the history of corrections. In fluid, vivid prose, Roth convincingly ties one of the worst prison tragedies to numerous contemporary corrections issues.” (Norman Rose, Kent State University)
“A captivating work offering a fresh perspective on the pains of imprisonment.” (Punishment & Society)
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- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 376
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 327
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 327
Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters were playing cards in Boston's North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like, "a roaring surf," one of them said later. Like, "a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence," said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window - "Oh my God!" he shouted to the other men, "Run!" A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour.
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3 out of 5 stars
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INTERESTING STORY - ABOUT 2x TOO LONG
- By The Louligan on 09-07-14
By: Stephen Puleo
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Damnation Island
- Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York
- By: Stacy Horn
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 402
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 343
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Story4 out of 5 stars 339
Today it is known as Roosevelt Island. In 1828, when New York City purchased this narrow, two-mile-long island in the East River, it was called Blackwell's Island. There, over the next hundred years, the city would build a lunatic asylum, prison, hospital, workhouse, and almshouse. Stacy Horn has crafted a compelling and chilling narrative told through the stories of the poor souls sent to Blackwell's, as well as the period's city officials, reformers, and journalists (including the famous Nellie Bly). Damnation Island re-creates what daily life was like on the island....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating!
- By tamborine on 08-06-18
By: Stacy Horn
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Hanns and Rudolf
- The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz
- By: Thomas Harding
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
May 1945: In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. One of the lead investigators is Lieutenant Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who is now serving in the British Army. Rudolf Höss is his most elusive target. Hanns and Rudolf reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss' capture, an encounter with repercussions that echo to this day.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I Read This Marvelous Book...
- By Douglas on 01-04-14
By: Thomas Harding
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Fire and Brimstone
- The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917
- By: Michael Punke
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 367
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 315
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 317
The worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history began a half hour before midnight on June 8, 1917, when fire broke out in the North Butte Mining Company's Granite Mountain shaft. Sparked more than 2,000 feet below ground, the fire spewed flames, smoke, and poisonous gas through a labyrinth of underground tunnels. Within an hour more than 400 men would be locked in a battle to survive. Within three days 164 of them would be dead.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fairly Solid Book With Good History
- By Matthew on 08-18-16
By: Michael Punke
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Blood in the Water
- The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
- By: Heather Ann Thompson
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 22 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 694
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 618
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 619
On September 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 prisoners took over the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to protest years of mistreatment. Holding guards and civilian employees hostage, the prisoners negotiated with officials for improved conditions during the four long days and nights that followed. On September 13, the state abruptly sent hundreds of heavily armed troopers and correction officers to retake the prison by force. Their gunfire killed 39 men - hostages as well as prisoners.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Tragic Events, Well-Told
- By David on 10-27-17
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KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps
- By: Nikolaus Wachsmann
- Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
- Length: 31 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,055
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 956
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 949
In KL, Wachsmann fills this glaring gap in our understanding. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Narrator warning!
- By S R L COTTERILL on 04-24-15
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Inside Alcatraz
- My Time on the Rock
- By: Jim Quillen
- Narrated by: Jeff Harding
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
Each day we saw the outside world in all its splendour, and each day that view served as a reminder that we had wasted and ruined our lives. Jim Quillen, AZ586 - a runaway, problem child and petty thief - was jailed several times before his twentieth birthday. In August 1942, after escaping from San Quentin, he was arrested on the run and sentenced to forty-five years in prison, and later transferred to Alcatraz.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Cautionary Tale of a Life Misspent
- By Rob S. on 03-16-17
By: Jim Quillen
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Killing Jesus
- A History
- By: Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard
- Narrated by: Bill O'Reilly
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 9,673
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8,533
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 8,545
Millions of people have thrilled to best-selling authors Bill O'Reilly and historian Martin Dugard's Killing Kennedy and Killing Lincoln, works of nonfiction that have changed the way we view history. Now the anchor of The O'Reilly Factor details the events leading up to the murder of the most influential man in history: Jesus of Nazareth. Nearly 2,000 years after this beloved and controversial young revolutionary was brutally killed by Roman soldiers, more than 2.2 billion human beings attempt to follow his teachings and believe he is God.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Jesus story in context
- By Kimberly on 10-01-13
By: Bill O'Reilly, and others
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Gulag
- A History
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 27 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 971
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 854
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 850
The Gulag - a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners - was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Nice compliment to Solzhenitsyn
- By Thucydides on 08-03-17
By: Anne Applebaum
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One Long Night
- A Global History of Concentration Camps
- By: Andrea Pitzer
- Narrated by: Andrea Pitzer
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story5 out of 5 stars 56
For over 100 years, at least one concentration camp has existed somewhere on Earth. First used as battlefield strategy, camps have evolved with each passing decade, in the scope of their effects and the savage practicality with which governments have employed them. Even in the 21st century, as we continue to reckon with the magnitude and horror of the Holocaust, history tells us we have broken our own solemn promise of "never again".
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2 out of 5 stars
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Important subject. Horrible narration.
- By wmorrison on 07-04-19
By: Andrea Pitzer
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The Pharmacist of Auschwitz
- The Untold Story
- By: Patricia Posner
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 328
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 299
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 297
The Pharmacist of Auschwitz is the little-known story of Victor Capesius, a Bayer pharmaceutical salesman from Romania, who, at the age of 35, joined the Nazi SS in 1943 and quickly became the chief pharmacist at the largest death camp, Auschwitz. Based in part on previously classified documents, Patricia Posner exposes Capesius's reign of terror at the camp, his escape from justice, and how a handful of courageous survivors and a single brave prosecutor finally brought him to trial for murder 20 years after the end of the war.
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2 out of 5 stars
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I respect every victim of the Holocaust to....
- By LisalouRN on 08-26-17
By: Patricia Posner
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Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
- By: Edward Steers Jr.
- Narrated by: William Coon
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 118
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is usually told as a tale of a lone deranged actor who struck from a twisted lust for revenge. This is not only too simple an explanation; Blood on the Moon reveals that it is completely wrong. John Wilkes Booth was neither mad nor alone in his act of murder. He received the help of many, not the least of whom was Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd, the Charles County physician who has been portrayed as the innocent victim of a vengeful government.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thrilling and informative
- By Sean on 06-21-12
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City of Scoundrels
- The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago
- By: Gary Krist
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 139
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 115
When 1919 began, the city of Chicago seemed on the verge of transformation. Modernizers had an audacious, expensive plan to turn the city from a brawling, unglamorous place into "the Metropolis of the World". But just as the dream seemed within reach, pandemonium broke loose and the city’s highest ambitions were suddenly under attack by the same unbridled energies that had given birth to them in the first place.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great History of a Great City
- By Cookie on 08-30-12
By: Gary Krist
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Tong Wars
- The Untold Story of Vice, Money, and Murder in New York's Chinatown
- By: Scott D. Seligman
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
Nothing had worked. Not threats or negotiations, not shutting down the betting parlors or opium dens, not throwing Chinese offenders into prison. Not even executing them. The New York DA was running out of ideas, and more people were dying every day as the weapons of choice evolved from hatchets to automatic weapons and even bombs. Welcome to New York City's Chinatown in 1925.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Valuable Imformation! Fascinating History.
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 05-21-18
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Satan's Circus
- Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York's Trial of the Century
- By: Mike Dash
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 133
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 64
They called it Satan's Circus, a square mile of Midtown Manhattan where vice ruled, sin flourished, and depravity danced in every doorway. At the turn of the 20th century, murder was so common in the vice district that few people were surprised when the loudmouthed owner of a shabby casino was gunned down on the steps of its best hotel.
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4 out of 5 stars
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New York, N.Y
- By Robert on 07-11-07
By: Mike Dash
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American Brutus
- John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies
- By: Michael Kauffman
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 21 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
In American Brutus, popular historian Michael W. Kauffman delivers a history that reads more like a best-selling novel. This definitive masterwork dispels commonly held myths and reveals the truth about John Wilkes Booth. Luring Southern sympathizers into a “noble” presidential kidnapping, Booth stunned his puzzled pawns by murdering Lincoln. From Booth’s early life and acting career to his escape and death, this meticulously researched book re-examines it all using a wealth of primary sources.
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4 out of 5 stars
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informative
- By Sue Ogle on 11-27-20
By: Michael Kauffman
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Masters of Death
- The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Neil Hellegers
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 208
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 189
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 189
In Masters of Death, Richard Rhodes gives full weight, for the first time, to the Einsatzgruppen's role in the Holocaust. These "special task forces", organized by Heinrich Himmler to follow the German army as it advanced into Eastern Poland and Russia, were the agents of the first phase of the Final Solution. They murdered more than one and a half million men, women, and children between 1941 and 1943, often by shooting them into killing pits, as at Babi Yar.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good book...but...
- By Disintegrator on 08-26-19
By: Richard Rhodes
What listeners say about Fire in the Big House
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Trkmec
- 12-29-22
Interesting!
Educational, some history I never knew about ! Tragic and sad you still felt sorry for some of the inmates. I enjoyed Marlin Mays narration quite well , I first discovered him listening to some fantastic children’s books with my boys.
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