DOCSLIB.ORG

Sholem Schwarzbard: Biography of a Jewish Assassin

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Sholem Schwarzbard: Biography of a Jewish Assassin Sholem Schwarzbard: Biography of a Jewish Assassin The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Johnson, Kelly. 2012. Sholem Schwarzbard: Biography of a Jewish Assassin. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:9830349 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA © 2012 Kelly Scott Johnson All rights reserved Professor Ruth R. Wisse Kelly Scott Johnson Sholem Schwarzbard: Biography of a Jewish Assassin Abstract The thesis represents the first complete academic biography of a Jewish clockmaker, warrior poet and Anarchist named Sholem Schwarzbard. Schwarzbard's experience was both typical and unique for a Jewish man of his era. It included four immigrations, two revolutions, numerous pogroms, a world war and, far less commonly, an assassination. The latter gained him fleeting international fame in 1926, when he killed the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petliura in Paris in retribution for pogroms perpetrated during the Russian Civil War (1917-20). After a contentious trial, a French jury was sufficiently convinced both of Schwarzbard's sincerity as an avenger, and of Petliura's responsibility for the actions of his armies, to acquit him on all counts. Mostly forgotten by the rest of the world, the assassin has remained a divisive figure in Jewish-Ukrainian relations, leading to distorted and reductive descriptions his life. In contrast to these partial views, the thesis follows Schwarzbard's fate chronologically, from cradle to grave, emphasizing development and contradiction in his story. Special attention is paid the dynamic nature of Schwarzbard's Jewish, Anarchist, and French commitments. After a long struggle, it was the first of these that came to dominate Schwarzbard's life, as he called the Jews back into history and himself back to his people with a single, irrevocable deed. iii Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1.1 Setting the Scene: The Assassination.......................................................................................1 1.2 Petliura's Reputation as Pogromist............................................................................................3 1.3. Sholem Schwarzbard's View of Symon Petliura...................................................................7 1.4 Basic Ukrainian and Jewish Views of Schwarzbard.........................................................10 1.5 The Petliura Debate and its Effect on the Biographical Understanding of Sholem Schwarzbard since the Trial.................................................................................................12 1.6 The Thesis: A Cradle to Grave Biography of a Jewish Assassin...................................20 2. Growing Up in and Around Balta (1886-1906) 2.1 Balta.......................................................................................................................................................22 2.2 Schwarzbard's Family Background.........................................................................................24 2.3 Sholem's Birth in Izmael and the Family's Return to Balta...........................................26 2.4 The Death of Schwarzbard's Mother......................................................................................30 2.5 Into the Workplace and Revolution........................................................................................33 2.6 The Early Fight against Pogroms...............................................................................................39 3. Schwarzbard as Emigrant (1906-1914) 3.1 First Love, First Arrest and First Emigration......................................................................43 3.2 New Names........................................................................................................................................44 3.3 Conversion to Anarchism.............................................................................................................47 3.4 The Vienna Expropriation...........................................................................................................53 3.5 Broken Words, Broken Heart and a Second Emigration................................................57 3.6 Schwarzbard Arrives in Paris, January 1910......................................................................60 3.7 Schwarzbard Meets his Life Partner Anna...........................................................................63 4. Defending the Republic and his Honor (August 1914 – August 1917) 4.1 The Pride and Dilemmas of an Anarcho-Jewish Volunteer...........................................68 4.2 Training for the Legion in Lyon and Avignon.....................................................................73 4.3 In the Trenches: Champagne (November 1914-April 1915)......................................76 4.4 Schwarzbard's War Poems on Jewish Themes...................................................................78 4.5 Arras (April-August1915)...........................................................................................................85 4.6 The 363rd Regular Infantry Regiment (August 1915-March 1, 1916)....................89 iv 5. The Russian Revolution (August 1917-December 1919). 5.1 Brest, Archangelsk, Petrograd, Odessa..................................................................................96 5.2 Reunion with his Father and another Balta Self-Defense Effort................................99 5.3 In the Red Guard...........................................................................................................................101 5.4 Schwarzbard's Role in the First Workers' Soviet...........................................................104 5.5 Otriad Roshal..................................................................................................................................105 5.6 Retreat to Occupied Odessa.....................................................................................................108 5.7 Schwarzbard Works under the Bolsheviks (April-June 1919).................................110 5.8 The International Division and the 1919 Pogroms.......................................................111 6. Back to Paris and Civilian Life (January 1920-May 25, 1926) 6.1 Sholem and Anna Settle Again in Paris...............................................................................119 6.2 The Poetic "Prologue" to Assassination..............................................................................121 6.3 Zeitgeist: Between War and Peace...................................................................................... 126 6.4 Building Jewish Connections and Commitment..............................................................135 6.5 Anarchist Reportage: The "Sholem" Articles....................................................................140 6.6 Petliura's Arrival in Paris and the Assassination............................................................145 7. Eighteen Months in Jail (May 26, 1926 – October 18, 1927) 7.1 Schwarzbard's First Night in Prison....................................................................................152 7.2 Some Early Responses in the Yiddish Press.....................................................................155 7.3 Symon Petliura's Funeral..........................................................................................................159 7.4 Anna Caught Up in the Affair...................................................................................................161 7.5 An Appeal from Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman........................................165 7.6 Saul Yanovsky and the Anarchist Debate...........................................................................170 7.7 Sholem Asch's Apotheosis of the Jewish Assassin..........................................................174 7.8 Schwarzbard Defines the "Jewish Fear".............................................................................176 7.9 Long, Forgotten Months in Prison La Santé......................................................................180 7.10 In Cold Weather the Affair Warms Up...............................................................................185 7.11 Le Figaro's François Coty, and the Final Months before the Trial..........................189 8. The Trial (October 18 – October 26, 1927) 8.1 Commotion at the Palais de Justice........................................................................................193 8.2 First Impression of the Jewish Avenger..............................................................................196 8.3 Schwarzbard Caught between Response and Remembrance...................................200 8.4 Schwarzbard and Four French Lawyers.............................................................................202 8.5 Long Lessons in Ukrainian History.......................................................................................211 8.6 Final Arguments: Schwarzbard's Martyrdom a fait accompli..................................215 v 9. Life After Acquittal (October 26, 1928-March 3, 1938) 9.1 Schwarzbard in Hiding?.............................................................................................................225
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Black Cross Bulletin
    Black Cross Bulletin A Los Angeles Anarchist Black Cross Federation Publication SUMMER 2019 "The work isn’t done for the glory, but because we believe in Mutual Aid.” - Boris Yelensky Vol. 2 Issue 1 Janet, Janine and Eddie Freed After 40 Years On May 24, 2019, Janet Holloway Africa and Janine Phillips Africa of the MOVE 9 were released from state custody after more than forty years of incarceration. On June 21st, Eddie Africa was also released from prison. Imprisoned since 1978, these MOVE members have been battling for their freedom after being con - sistently denied parole for over a decade despite an impeccable disciplinary record and extensive record of mentorship and community service during their time in prison. They, along with the rest of the MOVE 9, were arrested after clash with the Philadelphia police department on August 8, 1978. The Move Organization owned a large twin house on the corner at 33rd and Pearl Street in the Powelton Village neigh - borhood of Philadelphia. Tensions began to increase between the city government and the MOVE organization due to a combina - destroying most of the evidence. On May 4, However, the rest of the MOVE members tion of neighborhood complaints and con - 1980, a judge pronounced the nine mem - were denied parole in 2018. After the frontations with government agencies. The bers of MOVE (the MOVE 9) guilty and denials, attorneys from Abolitionist Law MOVE organization, believing they were sentenced them to 30-100 years for the Center and People’s Law Office filed peti - going to be attacked by the police, began to third-degree murder of the police officer.
    [Show full text]
  • The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth As a Political Space: Its Unity and Complexity*
    Chapter 8 The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a Political Space: Its Unity and Complexity* Satoshi Koyama Introduction The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) was one of the largest states in early modern Europe. In the second half of the sixteenth century, after the union of Lublin (1569), the Polish-Lithuanian state covered an area of 815,000 square kilometres. It attained its greatest extent (990,000 square kilometres) in the first half of the seventeenth century. On the European continent there were only two larger countries than Poland-Lithuania: the Grand Duchy of Moscow (c.5,400,000 square kilometres) and the European territories of the Ottoman Empire (840,000 square kilometres). Therefore the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the largest country in Latin-Christian Europe in the early modern period (Wyczański 1973: 17–8). In this paper I discuss the internal diversity of the Commonwealth in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and consider how such a huge territorial complex was politically organised and integrated. * This paper is a part of the results of the research which is grant-aided by the ‘Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research’ program of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 2005–2007. - 137 - SATOSHI KOYAMA 1. The Internal Diversity of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Poland-Lithuania before the union of Lublin was a typical example of a composite monarchy in early modern Europe. ‘Composite state’ is the term used by H. G. Koenigsberger, who argued that most states in early modern Europe had been ‘composite states, including more than one country under the sovereignty of one ruler’ (Koenigsberger, 1978: 202).
    [Show full text]
  • 2016 Pakn Treger Translation Issue
    Table of Contents “You Have Not Betrayed Me Since the Day We Met” and “You Olive Tree in the Night” by Avrom Sutzkver, translated by Maia Evrona “On the Landing” by Yenta Mash, translated by Ellen Cassedy “From Eternity to Eternity: Thoughts and Considerations in Honor of Passover” by Moyshe Shtarkman, translated by Ross Perlin “In Which I Hate It and Can’t Stand It and Don’t Want to and Have No Patience at All” by Der Tunkeler, translated by Ri J. Turner “Letters” by H.D. Nomberg, translated by Daniel Kennedy “Blind Folye” by Froyim Kaganovski, translated by Beverly Bracha Weingrod “Mr. Friedkin and Shoshana: Wandering Souls on the Lower East Side” (an excerpt from Hibru) by Joseph Opatoshu, translated by Shulamith Z. Berger “Coney Island, Part Three” by Victor Packer, translated by Henry Sapoznik “Old Town” (an excerpt from The Strong and the Weak) by Alter Kacyzne, translated by Mandy Cohen and Michael Casper An Excerpt from “Once Upon a Time, Vilna” by Abraham Karpinowitz, translated by Helen Mintz “To a Fellow Writer” and “Shloyme Mikhoels” by Rachel H. Korn, translated by Seymour Levitan “The Destiny of a Poem” by Itzik Manger, translated by Murray Citron “The Blind Man” by Itsik Kipnis, translated by Joshua Snider Introduction he translation theorist Lawrence Venuti closes his short essay “How to Read a Translation” on a note of defiance: T Don’t take one translation of a foreign literature to be representative of the language, he tells us. Compare the translation to other translations from the same language. Venuti’s point is both political and moral.
    [Show full text]
  • Cursed Days, a Diary of the Revolution'
    H-Russia Rose on Bunin, 'Cursed Days, A Diary of the Revolution' Review published on Thursday, October 1, 1998 Ivan Bunin. Cursed Days, A Diary of the Revolution. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee Publisher, 1998. xiii + 286 pp. $28.50 (paper), ISBN 978-1-56663-186-0. Reviewed by Linda P. Rose (Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California at Los Angeles) Published on H-Russia (October, 1998) Revolutionary Days: Still Cursed? Cursed Days, Ivan Bunin's diary/notebook written during and about the Russian Revolution and the Civil War, became immensely popular in Russia after the Soviets lost power through a bloodless revolution. Since 1991, no less than fifteen separate editions of Bunin's diary/notebook have been published in Russia. There can be many explanations for the diary/notebook's popularity. Bunin's diary/notebook and other works, along with the books of other Russian emigre authors, were banned by the Soviets by the end of the 1920's. Although they could not be bought in stores, these authors could not be eliminated from the hearts and minds of some Russians. With the Soviets' downfall, many sought to know more about the events that had occurred between 1918-1920. Another, perhaps more pressing motive for the readers was to understand more about their own evolving revolution. While the Bolsheviks' dependence on bloodshed to re-shape Russia has not been copied by their successors since the 1991 Revolution, ethnic strife, economic woes, and social upheaval have accompanied the revolution. The battles in Chechnya continue. Economic problems are common, and many public servants and the military personnel get sub-existence wages.
    [Show full text]
  • University of Groningen Between Personal Experience and Detached
    University of Groningen Between personal experience and detached information Harbers, Frank IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Publication date: 2014 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Harbers, F. (2014). Between personal experience and detached information: The development of reporting and the reportage in Great Britain, the Netherlands and France, 1880-2005. [S.l.]: [S.n.]. Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum. Download date: 12-11-2019 Paranymphs Dominique van der Wal Marten Harbers Voor mijn vader en mijn moeder Graphic design Peter Boersma - www.hehallo.nl Printed by Wöhrmann Print Service Between Personal Experience and Detached Information The development of reporting and the reportage in Great Britain, the Netherlands and France, 1880-2005 Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen op gezag van de rector magnificus prof.
    [Show full text]
  • Nostalgia and the Myth of “Old Russia”: Russian Émigrés in Interwar Paris and Their Legacy in Contemporary Russia
    Nostalgia and the Myth of “Old Russia”: Russian Émigrés in Interwar Paris and Their Legacy in Contemporary Russia © 2014 Brad Alexander Gordon A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for completion Of the Bachelor of Arts degree in International Studies at the Croft Institute for International Studies Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College The University of Mississippi University, Mississippi April, 2014 Approved: Advisor: Dr. Joshua First Reader: Dr. William Schenck Reader: Dr. Valentina Iepuri 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………p. 3 Part I: Interwar Émigrés and Their Literary Contributions Introduction: The Russian Intelligentsia and the National Question………………….............................................................................................p. 4 Chapter 1: Russia’s Eschatological Quest: Longing for the Divine…………………………………………………………………………………p. 14 Chapter 2: Nature, Death, and the Peasant in Russian Literature and Art……………………………………………………………………………………..p. 26 Chapter 3: Tsvetaeva’s Tragedy and Tolstoi’s Triumph……………………………….........................................................................p. 36 Part II: The Émigrés Return Introduction: Nostalgia’s Role in Contemporary Literature and Film……………………………………………………………………………………p. 48 Chapter 4: “Old Russia” in Contemporary Literature: The Moral Dilemma and the Reemergence of the East-West Debate…………………………………………………………………………………p. 52 Chapter 5: Restoring Traditional Russia through Post-Soviet Film: Nostalgia, Reconciliation, and the Quest
    [Show full text]
  • Jusqu'au Dernier Jour
    Jusqu'au dernier jour PIERRE-BLOCH Jusqu'au dernier jour MÉMOIRES Albin Michel « H comme Histoire » Collection dirigée par Philippe Bourdrel © Éditions Albin Michel S.A., 1983 22, rue Huyghens, 75014 Paris ISBN 2-226-01920-0 ISSN 0755-1754 Le souvenir est un poète, n'en fais pas un historien. Georges Clemenceau A ma femme Le temps du souvenir Je n'ai pas la prétention d'être un historien même si je me plonge souvent dans les manuels d'histoire. Ce livre, reflet de ma mémoire, narre une histoire : la mienne avec son cortège de souvenirs et de portraits. J'y évoque des grands hommes et des moins grands. Certains furent des proches et avec d'autres j'ai participé à quelques événements de ce siècle. Il se peut que certains d'entre eux soient des inconnus pour vous. Il n'y a pas que la mort pour effacer le souvenir, le temps y contribue, aussi, allégrement. Je doute que beaucoup, de ceux qui me liront, se souviennent ou aient simplement entendu évoquer les noms de Paul Mounet, même si la ville de Bergerac possède une statue des célèbres frères Mounet, Mary Garden, Poincaré, Viviani, Jean Longuet, Frossard et bien d'autres encore. J'ai connu et rencontré ces hommes. L'histoire passe, broyant tout sur sa route. Dans quelques années, si le bachot existe toujours, des cancres feront de Foch et de Joffre des maréchaux d'Empire et, de la même manière, penseront que de Gaulle était un traître et que l'ex-maréchal Pétain a prononcé l'appel du 18 juin.
    [Show full text]
  • Activity Report 2017
    Activity Report 2017 LDA Mostar activities aim to create active citizenship and transparent and responsible authorities with the final goal of establishing a modern and democratic society… Local Democracy Agency Mostar WWW.LDAMOSTAR.ORG| Fra Ambre Miletica 30, 88 000 Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina 1 Activity Report 2017 2 Activity Report 2017 Contents About ............................................................................................................................ 4 PROJECTS IMPLEMENTED IN 2017 ............................................................................ 8 Balkan Regional Platform for Youth Participation and Dialogue .................................. 8 Urban Re-Generation: The European Network of Towns - URGENT ........................ 22 CARAVAN NEXT. Feed the Future: Art Moving Cities ............................................... 27 Innovating COworking Methods through Exchange – INCOME ................................. 29 Balkan Kaleidoscope ................................................................................................. 31 Women's Communication for Solidarity - WomCom .................................................. 33 Youth’s Advocate - YouAct ........................................................................................ 35 Volunteer Management in Europe's Youth Sector - VOLS EUROPE ........................ 36 Snapshots from the Borders - Small Towns Facing the Global Challenges of Agenda 2030 ..........................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Haymarket Riot (Chicago: Alexander J
    NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATION NFS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 HAYMARKET MARTYRS1 MONUMENT Page 1 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service______________________________________________National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 1. NAME OF PROPERTY Historic Name: Haymarket Martyrs' Monument Other Name/Site Number: 2. LOCATION Street & Number: 863 South Des Plaines Avenue Not for publication: City/Town: Forest Park Vicinity: State: IL County: Cook Code: 031 Zip Code: 60130 3. CLASSIFICATION Ownership of Property Category of Property Private: X Building(s): Public-Local: _ District: Public-State: _ Site: Public-Federal: Structure: Object: Number of Resources within Property Contributing Noncontributing ___ buildings ___ sites ___ structures 1 ___ objects 1 Total Number of Contributing Resources Previously Listed in the National Register:_Q_ Name of Related Multiple Property Listing: Designated a NATIONAL HISTrjPT LANDMARK on by the Secreury 01 j^ tai-M NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 HAYMARKET MARTYRS' MONUMENT Page 2 United States Department of the Interior, National_P_ark Service___________________________________National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 4. STATE/FEDERAL AGENCY CERTIFICATION As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended, I hereby certify that this __ nomination __ request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property __ meets __ does not meet the National Register Criteria.
    [Show full text]
  • Brief History of German Anti-Semitism
    Chapter 1 Writings on the Wall Chapter 1 A Concise History of German Anti-Semitism In 1942, in a suburb of Berlin known as Wannsee, Reinhard Heydrich (head of the infamous Nazi secret police, the Gestapo) finalized the Nazi commitment to the extermination of the Jews within the Third Reich’s sphere of influence (Gilbert 281). According to some historians, these announcements made at Wannsee were the culmination of step-by-step decisions that had brought about what Adolf Hitler meant when, in 1920, he announced the Nazi party’s position that “None but members of the Nation may be citizens of the State. None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the Nation. No Jew, therefore, may be a member of the Nation” (qtd. in Gilbert 23). Both ancient and contemporary European and German anti-Semitic forces were about to collide in Wannsee. That collision tragically ignited one of history’s most devastating and most documented genocidal conflagrations—what today is commonly called the “Holocaust.” Some historians suggest the Holocaust was the result of the Nazi targeting of Jews as scapegoats by suggesting that world-Jewry collectively had had something to do with the “stab in the back” that brought the World War I German war effort and World War I itself to a turbulent end. Some researchers suggest European Jewry was singled out for “special treatment” because they, the Jews, were somehow responsible for the unexpectedly final battlefield- failures, the consequent enormous war reparation payments, the collapsing stock markets and the subsequent spiraling inflation that financially crippled the German nation.
    [Show full text]
  • Dniester Jews Between
    PARALLEL RUPTURES: JEWS OF BESSARABIA AND TRANSNISTRIA BETWEEN ROMANIAN NATIONALISM AND SOVIET COMMUNISM, 1918-1940 BY DMITRY TARTAKOVSKY DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Mark D. Steinberg, Chair Professor Keith Hitchins Professor Diane P. Koenker Professor Harriet Murav Assistant Professor Eugene Avrutin Abstract ―Parallel Ruptures: Jews of Bessarabia and Transnistria between Romanian Nationalism and Soviet Communism, 1918-1940,‖ explores the political and social debates that took place in Jewish communities in Romanian-held Bessarabia and the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic during the interwar era. Both had been part of the Russian Pale of Settlement until its dissolution in 1917; they were then divided by the Romanian Army‘s occupation of Bessarabia in 1918 with the establishment of a well-guarded border along the Dniester River between two newly-formed states, Greater Romania and the Soviet Union. At its core, the project focuses in comparative context on the traumatic and multi-faceted confrontation with these two modernizing states: exclusion, discrimination and growing violence in Bessarabia; destruction of religious tradition, agricultural resettlement, and socialist re-education and assimilation in Soviet Transnistria. It examines also the similarities in both states‘ striving to create model subjects usable by the homeland, as well as commonalities within Jewish responses on both sides of the border. Contacts between Jews on either side of the border remained significant after 1918 despite the efforts of both states to curb them, thereby necessitating a transnational view in order to examine Jewish political and social life in borderland regions.
    [Show full text]
  • Touching the Memory
    Touching the Memory By William Eaton Zeteo is Reading, September 2014 My father usually invited an oirech (a poor person) from among those who had lined up at the door of the Beit HaMidrash to join us for [a Sabbath] meal. These were itinerant beggars, of whom there were, unfortunately, many in Poland. I was fascinated by these vagabonds who lived at the margin of our society, and their presence at our table added excitement and mystery to the celebration. This from a memoir by the former rabbi and director of Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel, Ben-Zion Gold. In the Introduction, Gold says that he wrote this memoir, The Life of Jews in Poland before the Holocaust, to rectify an “imbalance in the way we remember the Jews of Europe.” That is, we focus on the Holocaust and ignore how Jews lived, the “vitality and richness of Jewish life” in Europe before the most deadly wave of anti-Semitism—and of mass murder of people of many backgrounds. (See, please, Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, and I would also here recommend Tzvetan Todorov’s La Conquête de l’Amérique: La question de l’autre — The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other — which speaks powerfully of human savagery on our side of the Atlantic.) That said, I must also note that Gold’s memoir came most to life for me in its antepenultimate chapter, which tells how he, unlike his parents and three sisters, escaped: avoided being murdered by the Germans. Reading this chapter I was reminded of how my William Eaton is the Editor of Zeteo.
    [Show full text]