Lithouse Podcast

A masseuse who rises in the ranks to become Himmler’s confidant. A cross-dressing princess who spies for Japanese secret police in China. A Dutch Jew who personally hands over his friends to the Nazis and the gas chambers.The Collaborators is the story of three most unusual lives, all of whom served the other side during World War II. But it is also the story of their legacies and the ways in which the writing of history can become the falsification of history: The Dutchman and the spy were both remembered as martyrs, while the masseuse was awarded the Red Cross Medal barely three years after the end of the war.Why were these people exempted from post-war reckoning and social stigma? How are they remembered today, and what do they tell us about how history is written and remembered?Ian Buruma is a Dutch historian, author and professor of human rights and journalism. In over four decades he has written popular and respected books on culture and history, with special emphasis on Europe, Japan and China. With bo