Nazi genocide before WW2: blog a book: Blood and soil

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My library acquired the just-released book Blood and Soil, a world history of genocide and extermination from Sparta to Darfur, by Ben Kiernan, and I was the first to check it out. I don't think I will be able to finish it then record all the quotes before it's due date. So I'm sharing some as I go along. The trauma of this book for me is reading about so many genocides I never knew about before. Kiernan is a fair author so far. The only one guilty is mankind. Sadly, victims become victimizers. It is a terrible cycle. Today's quote points out that victimizers will repeat their crimes when opportunity affords.
Genocides not only exhibit similarities, many are actually related events. Their relationships are often personal and generational. For example, we can identify the German precursors of individual Holocaust perpetrators. Heinrich Goring, father of the future Nazi leader Hermann Goring, served in 1885-91 as Reichskommissar of German Southwest Africa (now Namibia). There, German participants in the 1904-8 genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples included the future Nazi governor of Bavaria, Franz Ritter von Epp, who during World War II presided over the liquidation of virtually all Bavaria's Jews and Gypsises. At the Nazis' 1931 Nuremberg rally, von Epp and Hermann Goring stood together in front of Hitler. (35-6)

Sadly, practice at genocide in Africa led to efficiency during the War and not abhorrence and repentance.

Similar articles at World War 2, atrocities, genocide, book reports

Comments

Anonymous said…
For anyone interested there is an extraordinary documentary called Passing Poston about the Japanese American citizens forcibly placed in interim camps during WWII. The film is being shown at the Two Booths Pioneer Theater from August the 8th till the 14th. The documentary follows the tales of four former internees, and shows their struggles with their painful past and their search for a place to belong in a country that labeled them the enemy. It is a must see!!

For tickets and info go to www.twoboots.com/pioneer
July 29, 2008
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