[Xmca-l] Re: The Dangers of Certainty: A Lesson From Auschwitz - NYTimes.com

[Peter Smagorinsky]

Thanks David. 

I recently finished reading an extraordinary book, Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands: Europe between Stalin and Hitler, which relies on archival evidence recently available to detail the astounding rates of starvation and death under these two mass murderers. Like most people, I have always associated Hitler's regime with Auschwitz and concentration camps, but those were later developments; just as horrific were the giant pits into which Jews fell following a bullet to the head, executed in mass killings on an extraordinary scale. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the period from 1925 through the early 1950s, particularly in the Ukraine, Belarus, and the rest of the region between Germany and Russia during an era of endless political and ethnic annihilation. Stalin's systematic starvation of Ukrainian peasants in order to collectivize their harvest to feed the industrial working class makes for difficult, yet important reading. p

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Preiss
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2014 6:29 PM
To: Activity eXtended Mind Culture
Subject: [Xmca-l] The Dangers of Certainty: A Lesson From Auschwitz - NYTimes.com


This piece at the NYT may trigger some interesting commentary here.
David

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/the-dangers-of-certainty/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0