Will I love Black Earth?

This brilliant book delves into the atrocities of Hitler and the tragedy of the Holocaust, highlighting the dangers we face today. Snyder masterfully narrates these horrific events, drawing on vivid and impressive testimonies of Jewish survivors. He boldly connects the past to the present, stating, “Our world is closer to Hitler's than we like to admit, and saving it requires us to see the Holocaust as it was --and ourselves as we are.” This haunting, absorbing, and groundbreaking read is a must for our challenging times.

The Holocaust was an event that we should learn from - not only to learn what happened during those black years, BUT in order to recognize the patterns that led to the event...are become aware of the possibility of a dangerous repetition.

I was, like many people, trying to make sense of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

I heard Timothy Snyder in numerous interviews, so I was keen to read one of his books. This one is a history of the Holocaust. It provides the background to the racist geopolitical ideology that informed Hitler.

But what I found most absorbing was Snyder’s argument that it was in the zones, especially those that had experienced both Soviet then Nazi invasions, where the state had ceased to exist that the killing was most rampant. Non-citizens fared worse than citizens. The surprising conclusion is that… show more.