Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and WarningNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “[Timothy] Snyder identifies the conditions that allowed the Holocaust—conditions our society today shares. . . . He certainly couldn’t be more right about our world.”—The New Republic A “gripping [and] disturbingly vivid” (The Wall Street Journal) portrait of the defining tragedy of our time, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of On Tyranny ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—The Washington Post, The Economist, Publishers Weekly In this epic history of extermination and survival, Timothy Snyder presents a new explanation of the great atrocity of the twentieth century, and reveals the risks that we face in the twenty-first. Based on untapped sources from eastern Europe and forgotten testimonies from Jewish survivors, Black Earth recounts the mass murder of the Jews as an event that is still close to us, more comprehensible than we would like to think and thus all the more terrifying. By overlooking the lessons of the Holocaust, Snyder concludes, we have misunderstood modernity and endangered the future. The early twenty-first century is coming to resemble the early twentieth, as growing preoccupations with food and water accompany ideological challenges to global order. 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. Groundbreaking, authoritative, and utterly absorbing, Black Earth reveals a Holocaust that is not only history but warning. New York Times Editors’ Choice • Finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize; the Mark Lynton History Prize; the Arthur Ross Book Award |
Contents
| 11 | |
BERLIN WARSAW MOSCOW | 29 |
THE PROMISE OF PALESTINE | 58 |
THE STATE DESTROYERS | 77 |
DOUBLE OCCUPATION | 117 |
THE GREATER EVIL | 144 |
GERMANS POLES SOVIETS JEWS | 178 |
THE AUSCHWITZ PARADOX | 207 |
SOVEREIGNTY AND SURVIVAL | 226 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
ally anti antisemitism Auschwitz Austria began Belarus Belarusian Berlin Betar Białystok British camps citizenship collaboration colonial communist created Czechoslovakia death deported destroyed destruction east eastern Europe eastern Poland Einsatzgruppen Estonian ethnic European Final Solution forces foreign policy French German German invasion German occupation German policy Germany’s global Gulag Heydrich Himmler Hitler Holocaust Home Army human idea Irgun Jewish Judeobolshevik Kampf Kharkiv kill Jews land large numbers Latvia leaders Lithuania lived major mass killing mass murder meant Mein Kampf million murder of Jews Nazi Germany neighbors NKVD Palestine party peasants Piłsudski pogroms Poles policemen Polish citizens Polish Jews Polish military political population race racial Red Army regime rescue Jews rescuers revolution Romanian shot Snyder Soviet citizens Soviet partisans Soviet power Soviet rule Soviet Ukraine Soviet Union Stalin stateless struggle survived territory thousand tion took Ukrainian Ukrainian nationalists USSR Vilnius Warsaw ghetto ŻIH Zionist zone