In 2017 I read Timothy Snyder’s Black Earth. It changed the way I think about the Holocaust, and I think holds some important lessons.
I first heard Snyder discuss his book on Milwaukee Public Television through a program called “On the Issues”. I ordered the book the next day. You can view that program here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldYn-kbou7U. I can recommend any of his online talks, but one of his most straightforward is here, beginning at the 5:30 mark [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxyHV90ESIY]. He makes his case better than I could hope to.
I’m compelled to share some reflections. The historical information and some of the political analysis are Snyder’s.
Most of what I knew about the Holocaust was true. But much of it was partial truth. Partial truth can lead us to false conclusions.
Anti-Semitism varied from fierce anti-Semitism in some Nazi-controlled countries to less anti-Semitic in others. Another thing that varied widely was the level of state destruction imposed by the Nazis (and the Soviets in some areas). What I mean by the “level of state destruction” is: How much of the government ceased to exist? Did the Nazis just allow the government to continue operation, but answer to the Nazis? Or did they expel or kill anyone who held a government office, from Presidents to local police?
It was state destruction, not anti-Semitism, that predicted rates of Jewish death from country to country within Nazi territory. In other words, in Nazi-controlled areas, a Jew was more likely to survive in a very anti-Semitic country with a fairly intact government than to survive in a less anti-Semitic country with no remaining government structure.
Germany itself is an example. While living as a Jew in Germany was a nightmare, it did take time to strip away the citizenship rights of German Jews, and to strip away their property rights. One in two German Jews were dead by the end of the war, so the point is not to say that German Jews were fortunate--that is of course absurd. It is to say that German law mattered to German Jews even as they were persecuted.
Poland’s government was obliterated during the war. It was a stateless zone. Nineteen of twenty Polish Jews were dead by the end of the war. Polish Jews died at much higher rates relative to German Jews, even though the level of anti-Semitism was not markedly different. Snyder reviews many other examples in detail.
Stanley Milgram’s experiments in obedience during the 1950’s were in part a response to the Holocaust. He wanted to understand how good people could be led to do bad things. He wanted psychological insight into how a Holocaust is possible. He entered these experiments with a premise that the Holocaust had been perpetrated by a cold bureaucracy that somehow caused ordinary people to do bad things, and his experiment reflected this model. Snyder’s history turns this perception on its head. To understand why, please listen to his talks and read his book.
Bureaucracy, or civic structures, were a crucial protector of Jewish life. Mass killing did not begin in organized camps, but in destroyed states where Jews had no claim to citizenship. Not only the SS, but also the German Army and even local (Polish, Lithuanian, etc.) police forces and citizens became participants in the slaughter of Jews. These murderers did not imagine that there should be a deliberative process or that Jews might have any level of citizenship or property rights, because the civic structures that protected those kinds of rights had been destroyed.
The protection lent to a citizen by the state turns out to be priceless. Again--I am not saying that state structures did a good job of protecting Jews during the war. But Jews were better off with a state that did a poor job of protection than they were with no state. In Nazi-controlled areas, Jews were better off as citizens of an anti-Semitic country than they were as non-citizens of a less anti-Semitic country under Nazi control.
This turns out to be consistent with current research on genocide: specifically, that state destruction or partial state destruction is a catalyst for genocide. The few exceptions (functioning states where genocide occurs) are single-party states (ie Cambodia, China, USSR). The Holocaust occurred when a single-party state (Nazi Germany) systematically caused state destruction in neighboring countries.
I’m left reflecting on some things about America.
We look more and more like a country made up of two competing one-party states. People seem to identify more strongly with the positions of their party than they do with the institutions that America is built upon. When we sacrifice the institutions to meet the goals of the party, we are striving for a one-party state, or striving to function as a one-party state. One-party states are dangerous.
Anti-government sentiment runs strong and leaders talk about starving the beast, destroying the administrative state, and abolishing departments en masse. How can we ensure rights and protections are not trampled as government departments are underfunded, understaffed, and discredited?
I also reflect on the drifting perceptions of citizenship. Black Earth underscores the crucial nature of citizenship for humane treatment and even survival. Initially, we might all agree that inalienable rights cannot be denied to us. Yet they are. When, for example, voting goes from a fundamental right to a privilege we think people should earn, we are pressing the tip of a wedge between Americans and their citizenship.
~
Black Earth is a difficult read. The content is unavoidably dark. Snyder’s book has a different narrative style than other histories. He is making an argument and discussing the human situations in these places rather than documenting the more linear stories and definitive logistics of modern war. The relatively large number of European person-names and place-names throughout the book make it difficult to follow. But it is an important book.
Please listen to the YouTube clips. You can listen to them like radio, there are (as I recall) no visual aids, so only the audio matters. Examples [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jBa7jtRaz4&t=1444s] and here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfgQWc4q2Bo&index=12&list=WL]. If you’re going to dive in to more, I also recommend this longer talk and subsequent panel discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRvDBFZiV1o and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0328FPu5IxM&t=2575s.
If you decide to read the book, you’ll need the hardcover edition. Type in the paperback is much too small.
God bless
I first heard Snyder discuss his book on Milwaukee Public Television through a program called “On the Issues”. I ordered the book the next day. You can view that program here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldYn-kbou7U. I can recommend any of his online talks, but one of his most straightforward is here, beginning at the 5:30 mark [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxyHV90ESIY]. He makes his case better than I could hope to.
I’m compelled to share some reflections. The historical information and some of the political analysis are Snyder’s.
Most of what I knew about the Holocaust was true. But much of it was partial truth. Partial truth can lead us to false conclusions.
Anti-Semitism varied from fierce anti-Semitism in some Nazi-controlled countries to less anti-Semitic in others. Another thing that varied widely was the level of state destruction imposed by the Nazis (and the Soviets in some areas). What I mean by the “level of state destruction” is: How much of the government ceased to exist? Did the Nazis just allow the government to continue operation, but answer to the Nazis? Or did they expel or kill anyone who held a government office, from Presidents to local police?
It was state destruction, not anti-Semitism, that predicted rates of Jewish death from country to country within Nazi territory. In other words, in Nazi-controlled areas, a Jew was more likely to survive in a very anti-Semitic country with a fairly intact government than to survive in a less anti-Semitic country with no remaining government structure.
Germany itself is an example. While living as a Jew in Germany was a nightmare, it did take time to strip away the citizenship rights of German Jews, and to strip away their property rights. One in two German Jews were dead by the end of the war, so the point is not to say that German Jews were fortunate--that is of course absurd. It is to say that German law mattered to German Jews even as they were persecuted.
Poland’s government was obliterated during the war. It was a stateless zone. Nineteen of twenty Polish Jews were dead by the end of the war. Polish Jews died at much higher rates relative to German Jews, even though the level of anti-Semitism was not markedly different. Snyder reviews many other examples in detail.
Stanley Milgram’s experiments in obedience during the 1950’s were in part a response to the Holocaust. He wanted to understand how good people could be led to do bad things. He wanted psychological insight into how a Holocaust is possible. He entered these experiments with a premise that the Holocaust had been perpetrated by a cold bureaucracy that somehow caused ordinary people to do bad things, and his experiment reflected this model. Snyder’s history turns this perception on its head. To understand why, please listen to his talks and read his book.
Bureaucracy, or civic structures, were a crucial protector of Jewish life. Mass killing did not begin in organized camps, but in destroyed states where Jews had no claim to citizenship. Not only the SS, but also the German Army and even local (Polish, Lithuanian, etc.) police forces and citizens became participants in the slaughter of Jews. These murderers did not imagine that there should be a deliberative process or that Jews might have any level of citizenship or property rights, because the civic structures that protected those kinds of rights had been destroyed.
The protection lent to a citizen by the state turns out to be priceless. Again--I am not saying that state structures did a good job of protecting Jews during the war. But Jews were better off with a state that did a poor job of protection than they were with no state. In Nazi-controlled areas, Jews were better off as citizens of an anti-Semitic country than they were as non-citizens of a less anti-Semitic country under Nazi control.
This turns out to be consistent with current research on genocide: specifically, that state destruction or partial state destruction is a catalyst for genocide. The few exceptions (functioning states where genocide occurs) are single-party states (ie Cambodia, China, USSR). The Holocaust occurred when a single-party state (Nazi Germany) systematically caused state destruction in neighboring countries.
I’m left reflecting on some things about America.
We look more and more like a country made up of two competing one-party states. People seem to identify more strongly with the positions of their party than they do with the institutions that America is built upon. When we sacrifice the institutions to meet the goals of the party, we are striving for a one-party state, or striving to function as a one-party state. One-party states are dangerous.
Anti-government sentiment runs strong and leaders talk about starving the beast, destroying the administrative state, and abolishing departments en masse. How can we ensure rights and protections are not trampled as government departments are underfunded, understaffed, and discredited?
I also reflect on the drifting perceptions of citizenship. Black Earth underscores the crucial nature of citizenship for humane treatment and even survival. Initially, we might all agree that inalienable rights cannot be denied to us. Yet they are. When, for example, voting goes from a fundamental right to a privilege we think people should earn, we are pressing the tip of a wedge between Americans and their citizenship.
~
Black Earth is a difficult read. The content is unavoidably dark. Snyder’s book has a different narrative style than other histories. He is making an argument and discussing the human situations in these places rather than documenting the more linear stories and definitive logistics of modern war. The relatively large number of European person-names and place-names throughout the book make it difficult to follow. But it is an important book.
Please listen to the YouTube clips. You can listen to them like radio, there are (as I recall) no visual aids, so only the audio matters. Examples [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jBa7jtRaz4&t=1444s] and here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfgQWc4q2Bo&index=12&list=WL]. If you’re going to dive in to more, I also recommend this longer talk and subsequent panel discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRvDBFZiV1o and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0328FPu5IxM&t=2575s.
If you decide to read the book, you’ll need the hardcover edition. Type in the paperback is much too small.
God bless
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