Black Earth Shines a Light onto a Dark Subject

Black.  Earth.  Two words that stand alone but have multiple constructs in meaning.  For instance, "black" can reference a color, have racial overtones, indicate a style of cooking (e.g. blackened shrimp), or darkness.  "Earth" can reference our planet of habitation, dirt, or the physical realm.  When you take these distinctive words and combine them, they completely change.  I believe Timothy Snyder knew exactly what he was doing when he coined the title of this book:  Black Earth - The Holocaust as History and Warning.

Here is a warning for you -- this book is not for the faint of heart or the intellectually lazy.  Why not for the faint of heart?  The topic of the Holocaust is difficult partly due to the origination of the term "genocide" to describe the horrific events.  Snyder includes some of those (e.g. Nazis tossing babies into the air to shoot them like clay targets...chilling described on page 190) but attempts to avoid those gruesome specifics.  Why not for the intellectually lazy?  The author digs into the intellectual rationale used by the Nazis to create a Judeo-bolshevik myth that served multiple arenas -- political, physical, spiritual, racial, and social -- in gaining collaboration from others to murder the Jews.  This myth became the primary reason (not anti-Semitism) that individuals participated in the killing of the Jews even when they were not forced to do so and could have opted out without consequence other than peer pressure.

In short, the Judeo-bolshevik myth was Hitler's way to solve problems.  Everything he believed that led to the Holocaust was rooted not in statehood but in race.  Additional countries were not needed for empire building but to sustain and help purify the Aryan race.  His utilized politics to further advance his race-baiting in strokes that created murderous consequences for the Jews.  As Germany occupied areas formerly held by the Soviet Union and discovered mass graves due to Russian savagery, the Germans cast the Jews as collaborators.  They took their property, adorned them in Soviet flags, and had them march to the Soviet anthem.  Why?  He forced an identification of the Jews with Russian actions, so the local populace would blame them and willingly understand the need to exact revenge.  The odd part is that many of the individuals now killing the Jews were the actual collaborators with the Soviets in the earlier killings.  Thus, the Judeo-bolshevik myth was the tool to move the Holocaust into its advanced stages of mass killings rather than one off shootings.

With a background in philosophy and intellectual history, this book took an approach that I greatly appreciated.  Snyder pulls back the veil so that our modern world can catch a glimpse into how this could have happened.  His final chapter -- "Conclusions for our World" -- is strong and powerful; yet, I even believe he could have stretched it further in application.  This book is not your normal approach to the Holocaust; however, it offers a fresh and engaging perspective to a terrible time.

A worthy read of a time that we cannot forget so as to prevent it from ever occurring again....


To comply with new regulations introduced by the Federal Trade Commission, I am offering this disclaimer:  I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review.