This is a comment by Empress Trudy that needs to be highlighted.
Art Spiegelman's "Maus" was nearly banned in Poland because he depicted the Poles as pigs with the implication that the Poles at best, did nearly nothing to help the Jews in the Shoah. While they weren't quite so evil as the Ukrainians who jumped at the chance to join the SS and Einsatzgruppen to exterminate Jews, the Poles to this day, when they talk about Polish deaths in WW2 generally exclude those of the Polish Jews.
Two of Walter Laqueur's books: "The Terrible Secret" and "The Changing Face of Antisemitism" are remarkable for the richness of content he includes carefully documenting the extent to which antisemitism was open and prevalent, and in many cases, government policy and law in Europe since 1850, and in the former book, the extent to which intelligence and media services in WW2 went to ignore, downplay and cover up the Holocaust.
Note: Laqueur is not an easy read. He's more of an archivist than an historian. His books are essentially several hundred pages of lists and footnotes with little to no historical analysis or interpretation.
Off topic, but I think Greenfield's article today is most powerful. Don't always agree with some things, but this one is hard not to agree with.
ReplyDeleteIn the Name of Islam
The crime is not being a Muslim.
***
Islam in its most compact form is best represented by Aslim Taslam; “Accept the Religion of Peace and You Will Have Peace.” It was the offer that Mohammed made to the Jews before he killed them. It was the offer he made to Byzantium.
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/in-the-name-of-islam/
It's too bad some of the self-described Progressive Zionists, not to mention other progressives, have such narrow reading habits. This would NEVER enter their realm, even as they may agree otherwise with the substance of the essay. It's how ignorance arises, and leaves them will little to offer besides personal disparagement.
From that article:
ReplyDelete"Moments like these put the Clash of Civilizations into bloody context. This isn’t abstract politics. It’s not about economics, the environment or foreign policy. It’s about a worldview in which a five-year-old who can’t recite the Islamic confession of faith deserves to be killed."
Incredible.