The UmBlog

World War 2 was started by agressive nations motivated in part by racial supremacy. Hitler told Germans and Austrians that they were the superior race of Aryans. He also used the European Jewish population as a scapegoat for all the ills they had brought on themselves when they lost WW1. The Japanese also considered themselves a superior race and saw a distinction between themselves and all other Asian people in China, Korea, and the Pacific islands. In Japan, anyone not Japanese was sub-human. In central Germany, anyone not "Aryan" was sub-human as well. The United States sent to the slaughter nearly 300,000 Americans to defeat these racist ideologies. Ironically, the United States had its own racist ideologies to defeat within. Eighty years prior to WW2, over 200,000 Americans died in conflict over this very issue in the Civil War. Before and after that war, the US used genocidal means to eradicate it's own aboriginal population. A footnote in American history Hitle...

The subtitle of Savage Continent: Europe in the aftermath of World War 2 was what caught my attention on the book shelf at the public library. I've done plenty of reading on the 2nd world war, but I realized I don't know any details on the post-war recovery. After this book, I learned the killing kept going. It's ironic that the European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize this week. "Congratulations for not having any genocides in the last 10 years. Keep up the good work." All I learned in high school was the United States lent money to rebuild Europe through the Marshall Plan and the Soviet Union brought down an iron curtain around eastern Europe. But that's the view from high altitude. In the more granular view, ethnic cleansing continued, not as much against Jews, though this still happened, but Germans were expelled from countries they had lived in, outside Germany for centuries. Ukranians and Poles, Italians and Yugoslavians. If that weren't enou...

If you are not a melancholic person like myself, you might not “enjoy” this book, because only a  Image via Wikipedia melancholic person can “enjoy” the depression brought on by a history of Eastern European genocide. Timothy Snyder writes Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin , about the hyperbolic topic of the murder of fourteen million people without supplementing the inherent tragedy of the history sensationalistic writing. Although he weaves the story together with deftness, bringing clarity and, at times, poignancy, he stays out of the story’s way. Only a fool would try to bring attention to himself before something already so immense. Snyder is no such fool. In my recent reading on the 2nd World War I’ve been stepping out of my America first perspective on it, and looking at the Eastern Front, where we provided materiel, but not the bodies. This book looks back a decade before the German invasion of the USSR to examine the horror Stalin previously wrought the...

I enjoy autobiographies, and the story of the Russian communist ground attack pilot , Anna Alexandrovna Timofeeva-Egorova , who helped repel the Germans from the USSR is better than any work of fiction I've read recently. Over Fields of Fire reads like an oral history, organized chronologically, but roughly transcribed. The amanuensis , if there was one, preferred ellipsis to periods at the end of paragraphs, as if Egorova stopped abruptly. It was annoying but did not take away form her story of determination, luck, hardship, betrayal by her country then redemption. After reading Davies' book, No Simple Victory, and his criticism of Soviet tactics, I had thought of the Red Army in only one dimension, soulless communists. But Egorova did not need a political officer to force her to fly and defend her motherland. She sought work in Moscow before the war to help build a modern subway as an enthusiastic Komsomol member. When she wasn't working underground or sleeping she wa...

I've developed this habit, when I'm included in the occasional email blast from friends and family who forward to everyone in their contact list the latest conspiracy, of looking up the claim at Snopes and replying all to the original message. I find the same person rarely includes me on the next e-mail blast, either because they decided to look first before forwarding or because they think I'm rude. Sometimes they will continue to forward something because the message says snopes has verified the conspiracy, which is usually not true. Anyway, after I replied all in response to an email blast about no one in Obama's class at Columbia remembers him, I hit "reply all" with the findings at Snopes, the Columbia records . But the sender wants to know about my motives regarding my defense of Obama. He asks, and I thought I might as well answer here, 1) DID U VOTE FOR OBAMA? 2) DO YOU BELIEVE IN COMMUNISM/SOCIALISM AS A GOOD THING, A CHRISTIAN THING? 3) DO U BELI...

I think I came across this film as a recommendation by Netflix. I had never heard of it before. However, it is a Walden film, and I usually like the stuff Walden puts out. Despite the title leaving me with low expectations, or maybe because of that, I was surprised by how good this movie is. It's based on Anne Holme's 1963 children's novel of the same name. Apparently, it was not enjoyed by the professional critics but it did win several awards. It's a piece of fiction about a boy who escapes from a communist work camp in Bulgaria. He carries with him a sealed envelope and is told to find Denmark to deliver the letter. He learns that there are good people in the world, that some people can be trusted. But he also learns that if one only fears wolves in sheeps clothing one will never trust and never smile and never have peace. I enjoyed the use of flashbacks to unveil a mystery. I watched this with my children who also enjoyed the story. I glimpsed Jesus in this movie...

There's no better cure for a fat, lazy summer than a book that will chill your very soul. Reading about the siege of Leningrad in WW2, from summer 1941 to January 1944, will make you shiver through their winter without fuel, and feel guilty for eating another hamburger while hundreds Cover of Leningrad: State of Siege of thousands died of starvation because of the Nazi siege and communist corruption. Michael Jones writes a 300 page history with abundant first person accounts, diaries, intercepted letters, oral histories, and personal sketches in Leningrad: State of Siege . I didn't review it here, but, previously, I had read an excellent account of the battle for Stalingrad . That battle was the turning point of the Nazi tide into Russia. Leningrad was not much of a battle though. Hitler was so impressed with the speed which his armies reached Leningrad, that he decided to bypass it, and starve it to death, so that the armies could go on to Moscow, a poor decision on his part ...

Remember the Handmaid's Tale ? It was the dire story predicting a women's dystopia under the regime of the Moral Majority in America. Of course, it never happened. The abortion wars of 1985 are still going on and the Religious Right has splintered. Meanwhile, 10 years later, the Taliban came to power and imposed a religious regime that made Atwood's book seem like a joke. Osama is the first post-Taliban film made in Afghanistan. The director pieced together anecdotes from the insanity of life under the regime and cobbled together a story about a 12 year old girl who has her head shaved by her mother and grandmother that she might find work outside the home without arrest by the Taliban religious enforcers. The movie starts with a rally of women in burqas marching for the opportunity to work in order to make money to fend off starvation. The religious police respond with high power hoses and imprisonment. All this young girl wants is to be a girl. She wants to jump rope. ...

Russian history includes seven centuries of serfdom. Apparently, Russia could not exist without serfdom, even though communism believes in the equality of all, so the USSR had to create prison camps to replace the exploited labor lost from the serfs. Solzhenitsyn writes Serfs! This comparison occurred to may when thy had the time to think about it, and not accidentally either. Not just individual features, but the whole central meaning of their existence was identical for serfdom and the Archipelago; they were forms of social organization for the forced and pitiless exploitation of the unpaid labor of millions of slaves. p.149 Since serfs were replaced with prisoners even the vestige of human rights was unnecessary. The "cure" of communism was worse than the illness it claimed to treat. The serfs did not work longer than from sunrise to sunset. The zeks started work in darkness and ended in darkness (and they didn't always end either). For the serfs Sundays were sacred; a...

The rise of communist Russia did not alarm the entire world. And the world could not believe atrocities would be committed by communists whose entire belief system depends on the assumption that men are ultimately good and not evil, that civilization is innate and not a thin veneer. Hence when contrary stories emerged, they were roundly condemned. One such escapee story by a prisoner who spoke English and snuck out on a British freighter. Evidently An Island Hell by S. A. Malsgoff. This book astounded Europe (and no doubt they accused its fugitive auther of exaggerating, for, after all, the friends of the New Society could not permit themselves to believe this slacerous volume) because it contradicted what was already well known; the newspaper Rote Fahne had described Solovki as a paradise. (And we hope that the paper's correspondent spent time in the Archipelago later on.) And it also contradicted those albums about Solovki disseminated by Soviet diplomatic missions in Europe; f...

The American version of Solzhenitsyn's history of the Soviet prison labor camps appears in 3 massive volumes. My earlier book reports ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ) came from the first volume, books 1 and 2. The 2nd volume contains books 3 and 4. Some of the quotes, including this one are macabre, but I note them because these are not a serial murderers lone quirks, but a bureaucratic, institutionalized deformity of a national soul that turned inward on itself. All of us are capable of this wickedness. I think part of it is that wickedness is easy. Righteousness is near impossible. So what happens in the far northern camp on Solovetsky Island where monks lived peacefully for centuries and disease invaded the crowded facility? ...the doctor gave terminal cases strychnine; and in the winter the bearded corpses in their underwear were kept in the church for a long time. Then they were put in the vestibule, stacked standing up since that way they took up less space. And when they carried th...

I never knew Frank Sinatra's entertainment skills included acting. He did a great job in this movie . The only thing not great about his performance was his karate scene. It was so bad, it was realistic. In fact it was real enough that Sinatra actually broke his hand in the scene. Ironically, today in 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy made his claim that the State Department had card carrying Communist party members in its employ. This story twists McCarthyism on its ear by suggesting the finger pointers were actually collaborators with the Russians and Chinese Communist governments. Every scene with the unnamed "bad" party in the movie was filmed with busts of Lincoln. Every scene with the unnamed "good" party was filmed with bald eagles and American flags. I don't understand why a movie in 1962 was filmed in black and white, but it only detracted from one scene, the American flag rendered in caviar. I wish I had seen that in color. Angela Lansbury looks th...

I'm trying out a new idea. I read many blogs, but usually, I often comment at the ones I don't agree with, hence I don't put them in my shared feeds. So here is where I left droppings this week. You will have to go to them to see if I agreed or not or fell somewhere between or outside. Pass the Courvoisier at Blaque Tulip “Wives, In The Same Way” ? at the CBE Scroll Is Spreading the Wealth Wrong? at the Reconciliation Blog choosing a house at Living a Wartime Lifestyle

Solzhenitsyn's observation, as described in the first two volumes of the Gulag Archipelago , about the long memories of our things is two sided. Some of us are pack rats in order to help us remember events. But some of those events we would be better off not remembering. The chief of the convoy - a ruddy mug, a good Russian face - broke into a run, and I hadn't managed to grasp what he wanted and why until I saw that he meant, clearly, to plant his sacred boot in my cursed back but something restrained him. However, he didn't spare his polished toe and kicked the suitcase and smashed in the top... (I still have that suitcase, and even now when I chance to come upon it, I run my fingers around the hole torn in it. It is a wound which cannot heal as wounds heal on bodies or on hearts. Things have longer memories than people.) (p. 524)

Solzhenitsyn points out the folly of pride which will manifest even in a prison camp such as the GULAG. I often have to blush at my recollections of my younger years (and that's where my younger years were spent!) [in the GULAG -jpu] But whatever casts you down also teaches you a lot. And it turned out that as a residue of the officer's shoulder boards, which had trembled and fluttered on my shoulders for two years in all, some kind of poisonous dust had settled in the empty space between my ribs... when they formed us up for the first time, and the work-assignment foreman looked down the line to pick out temporary work-brigade leaders, my worthless heart was bursting under my woolen field shirt: Me, me, pick me! I was not chosen, But why did I want it? I would only have made further shameful mistakes. Oh, how hard it is to part with power! This one has to understand. (p. 558)

As Solzhenitsyn was specially escorted to a scientific GULAG station from a more typical working camp in the GULAG he sat between his guards in the train station and listened to the trivial conversations around him and wanted to cry out to them to wake them up. Myself, I almost never leave the house or go to sleep at night without letting my family know I love them because there are no guarantees. Brothers! People! Why has life been given you? In the deep, deaf stillness of midnight, the doors of the death cells are being swung open - and great-souled people are being dragged out to be shot. On all the railroads of the country, this very minute, right now, people who have just been fed salt herring are licking their dry lips with bitter tongues. They dream of the happiness of stretching out one's legs and of the relief one feels after going to the toilet. In Orotukan the earth thaws only in summer and only to the depth of three feet - and only then can they bury the bones of those ...

After finishing volumes 1 and 2 of the Gulag Archipelago I will post a couple quotes from it. Solzhenitsyn's metaphors are striking to me. This one especially grabbed me. The journey in such a barge was no longer prisoner transport, but simply death on the installment plan. Anyway, they gave them hardly anything to eat. Then they tossed them out in the tundra - and there they didn't give them anything to eat. They just left them there to die, alone with nature. (578) Who isn't on death on the installment plan?

It's never good to be the last person to see a movie adored by millions of fans. The expectations are too high. Hence, The latest Batman installment, The Dark Knight , disappointed me. But I'm suffering from more than disappointment. I feel like I've been slimed, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps, it is because I find the solution the movie offers to the problem of evil so superficial. Perhaps, it is because the movie attempts to present evil without turning away yet falls so short. My readings on atrocities , genocides , and human rights confirm my theology, that we all are evil and are capable of all evil. The movie shows people who are forced into moral dilemmas of killing others in order to save others or themselves. Perhaps this movie would be a great example of "morality porn." Pornography slimes its watchers. An uncomfortable residue remains on the watcher that clouds one's perceptions. It's rated PG-13 for its violence and menace. It's not a ...

It is depressing that the U.S. Government does not consider sleep deprivation of enemy combatants a form of torture. Perhaps they should read The Gulag Archipelago. Sleeplessness was a great form of torture: it left no visible marks and could not provide grounds for complaint even if an inspection - something- unherad of anyway- were to strike on the morrow. "They didn't let you sleep? Well, after all, this is not supposed to be a vacation resort . The Security officials were awake too!" (They would catch up on ther sleep during the day.) One can say that sleeplessness became the universal method in the Organs . From being one among many tortures, it became an integral part of the system of State Security; it was the cheapest possible method and did not requre the posting of sentries. In all the interrogation prisons the prisoners were forbidden to sleep even one minute from reveille till taps. (In Sukhanovka and several other prisons used specifically for interrogatio...

In those moments of our pride when we think that we, humans, are good at our core, we are fortunate to have historians who will gladly and easily show us otherwise. If the Bible isn't enough for skeptics then histories such as this by Anne Applebaum easily suffice in the confirmation of the complete depravity of our souls. I encountered her book as I perused the library's shelves for Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago . His history wasn't there but her's was and I wasn't disappointed. Gulag: A History won her the 2004 Pulitzer prize for non-fiction. The Gulag provided the communists labor that a Communist economy can afford, slave labor. The horrific irony is that even at starvation rations and abundant exploitable resources the high cost of enforcement, guards, negated any economic contribution. Unfortunately, Stalin only knew how to throw good money after bad. The corrupted reasoning assumed more prisoner workers would eventually bring a return on the inves...