Explore every episode of the podcast descendants stuff

Anne-Caroline Bruns is the granddaughter of Louis Mourot (March 4, 1923 – February 7, 2016). Louis was a member of the French Resistance during World War II. Due to his involvement, he was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was imprisoned from 1943 to 1945. He survived the camp.

A part of Carolina Ardila's family was killed in the Holocaust, while another part was able to flee to South America. Today, Carolina is a Colombian professor researching historical memory. Her project shares similarities with our Podcast.

Nicole Wines is the great-granddaughter of Max Düring, who was imprisoned during the November Pogroms in 1938. He was held in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for five weeks. Shortly after his release, he passed away. Following Max's death, his remaining family was deported to Riga. Nicole's grandmother Eleonore survived the Riga Ghetto, but her mother, her brother, and her cousin were killed during the mass shootings of Aktion Dünamünde.

DS017 Robert Bertram 107641 and Salomon Bertram 107642

René Trauffler, born in Luxembourg in 1921, was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen from 1942 until the death march, which he documented from April 21 to May 9, 1945 in his diary. Kelsey had a chance to talk with his daughter, Josie Trauffler, while traveling in a bus en route to the 80th commemoration of the death march.

Mykola Urban is a survivor of Sachsenhausen and usually lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Due to the Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022 he became a refugee and currently lives in Switzerland, where he met Swiss journalist, Maria Kafantari. When Mykola decided to visit Sachsenhausen for the 80th Commemoration of the Liberation in May of 2025 Maria came along. In this interview, Kelsey speaks with both Maria and Mykola.

Dr. Axel Drecoll is the Director of the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation. In this interview, Julie Somers speaks with him about the conditions in the Camp, the hierarchy among prisoners and about people who visit the memorial today.

Michelle and Remko Huijsing are not descendants of former prisoners of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. But they traveled all the way from the Netherlands to visit the Sachsenhausen Memorial after learning about it in the TV-series "Generation War" (german title: Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter). In this interview, they speak with Jakob about their visit.

Andrea Tonko, the daughter of Julius Czygan visited Sachsenhausen and spoke with Kelsey. Julius was born December 21,1906 in Kiel, Germany. He was a member of the SPD (social democratic party) and was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen on February 22, 1941 as a political prisoner. He was liberated on the death march in 1945 close to Lübeck, Germany, where he died in October 1976.

DS011 Heinrich Feisthauer (german/deutsch)

This interview is about Aleksandr Milenkiy. Aleksandr was born in 1925 in Minsk, Belarus. Aleksandr volunteered in the Red Army Infantry to fight Nazi Germany in the fall of 1942 at age 17 and participated in the big Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. In October of 1943 he was captured by Germans, after being wounded crossing the Dnieper river under enemy fire. He was then imprisoned in Sachsenhausen, where he joined an international resistance group opposed to the Nazis. In April, 1945 he was liberated by the US Army during a forced march. Aleksandr came to the US from Belarus in 1992 and died in Shorewood, Wisconsin June 14, 2019. He was 93.

This interview is about Stanislaw Wadolowski. Stanislav was born in 1909 in the village of Rzędziany, Poland and died February 14, 1996 in Łódź. He was a pilot in the Polish army and was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen for 5 years.

This interview is about Karl Schirdewan. Karl was born in 1907 in Stettin, Germany and was a German Communist activist, remaining active in the illegal Communist Party after the Nazis came to power in 1933. He was arrested in 1934, sentenced to prison for so-called "conspiracy of high treason," and later placed in protective custody. He spent most of the Nazi era imprisoned in concentration camps, including Sachsenhausen and Flossenbürg, until he was liberated by U.S. forces in April 1945 during a forced march. Karl died July 14, 1998 in Potsdam Germany at the age of 91.

Peter Lütsches, geboren 1899 in Süchteln, war bis 1933 Fraktionsführer der Zentrumspartei im Süchtelner Stadtrat. Nach seiner Emigration nach Holland wurde er im Zweiten Weltkrieg verhaftet und in das Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen gebracht.

Richard Fagot ist einer der letzten noch lebenden ehemaligen Häftlinge des Konzentrationslagers Sachsenhausen. Im Rahmen der Feierlichkeiten zum 80. Jahrestag der Befreiung haben wir mit ihm an einem geschichtsträchtigen Ort reden können.

Klaus Reichmuth was arrested 13 January 1942 when he was a 17-year old high school student in Stettin and taken to gestapo headquarters in Berlin. He was transferred to Sachsenhausen on 29 March 1942 where he was imprisoned for 6 months.

Descendants Stuff co-host Jakob Feisthauer attended the commemoration event for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz and shares his experiences with the Descendant's Stuff team.

Heinrich Feisthauer was arrested as a part of the June campaign in 1938. He survived the concentration camp and was released in very poor health conditions in January 1939. Jakob Feisthauer, the great grandson of Heinrich, discovered the compensation files of Heinrich.

DS002 - Max Feybusch 4605

Tadeusz Witkowski was interned at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp 10.08.1940 - 26.02.1945. He was later transferred to Mauthausen/Gusen Concentration Camp, Amstetten, and Ebensee where he was liberated by American troops of the 80th Infantry Division in May 1945.

DS000 Heil Sachsenhausen