The Equivalency Canard
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HAARETZ BOOKS May 2011 Jerusalem sacred and profane Everyone's favorite comfort food ‘No worse than “elite” TV’ James Carroll’s look at a city and an idea 5 A cookbook of potatoes 16 Reality shows under examination 18 Hol o c a u s t St u d i e s The equivalency canard An innovative historical approach lumps Nazi and Soviet murder campaigns together, ignoring the implacable ideological roots behind the Shoah and giving Holocaust collaborators a free ride Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin dubs “the Bloodlands,” taking in 1932-1945. These murderous cam- by Timothy Snyder. Basic Books, 524 pages, $29.95 the area from central Poland to paigns are the central subject of By Efraim Zuroff western Russia through Ukraine, Snyder’s book, which has earned Belarus and the Baltics. It is in this lavish praise from historians, as n this bold attempt to reframe region that, by his account, more well as considerable public atten- a critical period in modern than 14 million civilians were mur- tion, not normally the case with I Eastern European history, Yale dered as a result of deliberate similar academic studies. historian Tim Snyder redraws his- policies of mass annihilation im- Snyder identifies six major mur- torical boundaries to create an ar- plemented by Nazi Germany and der campaigns carried out by the tificial geographic entity that he the Soviet Union during the years German and Soviet dictatorships Continued on page 4 4 BOOKS )""3&5;ď.BZ .BZď)""3&5; would have been appalled to have their Equivalency Jewish identity denied, when it is clear that Continued from page 1 it was the reason for their murder. In this respect, Snyder’s postmodern approach at- during the period that roughly corresponds tributes attitudes popular now to individu- to the existence of the Third Reich. During als who lived and died in the 1930s and ’40s the first, some 3.3 million Soviet citizens, and identified Jews, Poles, Ukrainians, etc. mostly Ukrainians, died of starvation as a If these issues were purely philosophi- result of a famine purposely engineered cal and not the subject of intense contem- by Stalin to advance collectivization in porary political debates with highly impor- 1932-1933. This was followed by the “Great tant practical implications, it would have Terror” of 1937-1938, during which the been far easier to appreciate the scope Soviet security apparatus killed 300,000 of Snyder’s research, his novel approach Soviet citizens, most of them Polish and to the subject, his command of so many Ukrainian citizens, in the Bloodlands. From languages, his creative and surprising the start of World War II until the German historical comparisons and his wonderful invasion of the USSR in June 1941, an ad- prose. The problem is, however, that this ditional 200,000 Poles were executed by book is already on its way to becoming the both occupiers, and during the German oc- bible of the Holocaust distorters in post- cupation of parts of the Soviet Union (1941- Communist Eastern Europe. 1944), 4.2 million local residents were delib- Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union erately caused to starve to death. If we add and the transition to democracy, the nations Snyder’s estimate of 5.4 million Jews shot that suffered under Communism (both in- or gassed in the Bloodlands by the Nazis side and outside the Bloodlands) have suf- during the same years and 700,000 civilians, fered from a severe case of “Holocaust mostly Belorussians and Poles, shot by the envy,” which lamentably spawned the Germans in reprisals during the same pe- Prague Declaration of June 2008, which riod, we reach a total of 14.1 million, which calls for a rewriting of historical studies and Snyder considers a conservative estimate textbooks to reflect the (historically false) of the civilians deliberately murdered in equivalency between Communist and Nazi the same territory between 1932 and 1945. crimes. The declaration also warns that While none of these facts were un- Europe will never be truly reunited until it known, the murderous policies of both AP recognizes its “common legacy” of Nazism Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union hav- and Communism, and lobbies for a joint ing been extensively researched, Snyder A child walks past a row of bodies at the newly liberated Bergen-Belsen camp, in Germany, April 1945. memorial day for all victims of totalitar- asserts that the “deliberate and direct ian regimes. The proposed date is August mass murder by these two regimes in the 23, the day in 1939 on which the Molotov- Bloodlands is a distinct phenomenon wor- The problem is that this book is already on Ribbentrop agreement was signed, and it thy of separate treatment.” To reinforce was deliberately chosen to reflect the os- his argument, Snyder presents some star- its way to being the bible of the Holocaust tensibly “equal blame” of Hitler and Stalin tling comparisons that point to the osten- for the atrocities of World War II − a theme sible uniqueness and significance of the distorters in post-Communist Eastern Europe. that finds clear expression in Snyder’s book, extremely high number of victims in the in which not a word is mentioned about the murder campaigns described in the book. role of the Soviets in defeating Hitler. Thus, for example, 14 million victims is cally every respect, that suffers the most after World War II. The second reason is In view of the fact that collaboration with 13 million more than the number of U.S. from Snyder’s faulty comparisons. By the far larger number of survivors from the Nazis in Eastern Europe was not only and British soldiers killed during World relating to the Shoah as merely one of six concentration camps, as opposed to death widespread, but also particularly lethal in War II, more than 10 million more than the equally terrible murder campaigns, he ig- camps; Auschwitz is the exception, since it its consequences, it is obvious that all those total number of victims who died in Nazi nores the absolute totality of its implacable also functioned as a labor camp. promoting the Prague Declaration have a and Soviet concentration − as opposed to ideological roots, which would have doomed Snyder’s well-taken points on these clear political agenda that seeks to change death − camps throughout the existence of every Jew in the world regardless of their Holocaust-related issues do not make up their status from nations of perpetrators to both regimes, and two million more than politics, religious practice or communal af- for the major flaw in his treatment of the those of victims, and help them to hide or the number of German and Soviet soldiers filiation, as well as its enormous geographic Shoah, which he relativizes by according at least minimize their own complicity in killed in battle in World War II (excluding scope and the Nazis’ success in enlisting the all the other murder campaigns the status Holocaust crimes. those who starved to death and POWs ex- assistance of so many other Europeans in of “genocide,” although none truly fit the An accepted equivalency between the ecuted by shooting). Snyder then proceeds its horrific implementation. Nor should the definition coined by Raphael Lemkin, the crimes committed by the two dictatorships to present his version of the history of the creation of unique industrial mass murder most important component of which is the will grant Communist crimes the status of Bloodlands, one that integrates all the mur- installations in Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor intent to wipe out an entire people. The genocide, something that will relieve the der campaigns into a single narrative. and Chelmno to carry out the Final Solution problem is that though the victims of these pressure on these societies to confront their As shocking as this litany of mass suffer- be ignored. All these factors make the other tragedies deserve to have their suf- past, since they will then be able to point ing is, the question we must ask is whether Holocaust unique among the murder cam- fering recognized, their perpetrators pun- to the participation of Jewish Communists Snyder’s decision to combine such dispa- paigns that took place in the Bloodlands (or ished and their losses restituted, for the in genocidal crimes against them, thus un- rate tragedies is historically justified. In anywhere else) − but acknowledging such most part this has still not taken place, cer- dermining any quest for justice and histor- fact, the only characteristics shared by would apparently detract from Snyder’s re- tainly not at the level accorded to the vic- ical truth. In that respect, Snyder’s unfor- these murder campaigns are that they configuration of the history of mass murder tims of the Holocaust. Snyder, a historian tunate downplaying of the significance of were carried out by dictatorships in a spe- in Eastern Europe between 1932 and 1945. of Eastern Europe who reads many of the the role played by Eastern European Nazi cific geographic area (of Snyder’s creation) local languages, obviously feels the pain war criminals and Holocaust collabora- during a specific time period, with similar No longer center stage of the other victims of totalitarian crimes tors, which barely distinguishes between horrific results. These factors, however, and seeks to contribute to a redress of their local victims and native perpetrators and do not necessarily create a true equivalen- Thus, most of the treatment of the Shoah legitimate grievances by reframing the ignores the enormous number of those who cy between them. Their scope was not the in this book focuses not on its uniqueness or events of 1932-1945 in such a way that the volunteered to murder their neighbors and same, the motivation to launch them was historical significance, but rather on a fact Holocaust will no longer occupy the center other Jews (and did so in many cases with not the same (aside from the desire of dic- that reinforces its connection to the other stage it deserves in European history.