The doors had been closed at once, but the train did not move until evening. We had learnt of our destination with relief. Auschwitz: a name without significance for us at that time, but it at least implied some place on this earth. The train travelled slowly, with long, unnerving halts. Through the slit we [...]
Entries Tagged as 'History'
“If This Is A Man” – Primo Levi
April 13th, 2012 · No Comments · Genocide, History, Uncategorized, WW2
“Life and Fate” – Vasily Grossman
April 9th, 2012 · No Comments · Genocide, Uncategorized, WW2
In Auschwitz: People in camps, people in prisons, people who have escaped from prision, people going to their death, know the extraordinary power of music. No one else can experience music in quite the same way. What music resurrects in the soul of a man about to die is neither hope nor thought, but simply [...]
“Life and Fate” – Vasily Grossman
April 8th, 2012 · No Comments · Genocide, Uncategorized, WW2
A small surprise had been laid on for Eichmann and Liss during their tour of inspection. In the middle of the gas chamber, the engineers had laid a small table with hors-d’oeurves and wine. Reineke invited Eichmann and Liss to sit down. Eichmann laughed at this charming idea and said: ‘With the greatest of pleasure’.
Tags:Genocide·totalitarianism·WW2
“Life and Fate” – Vasily Grossman
April 6th, 2012 · No Comments · Genocide, Humanism, Philosophy, Uncategorized
An electronic machine can carry out mathematical calculations, remember historical facts, play chess and translate books from one language to another. It is able to solve mathematical problems more quickly than man and its memory is faultless. Is there any limit to progress, to its ability to create machines in the image and likeness of [...]
“Life and Fate” – Vasily Grossman
April 5th, 2012 · No Comments · Uncategorized, WW2
The people at the hospital had been struck by her calm and the number of questions that she had asked. They hadn’t appreciated her inability to understand something quite obvious – that Tolya was no longer among the living. Her love was so strong that Tolya’s death was unable to affect it: to her, he [...]
“Life and Fate” – Vasily Grossman
April 5th, 2012 · No Comments · Genocide, Uncategorized, WW2
A letter from Anna Semyonovna to her son, Viktor Shtrum from a Ukrainian Ghetto: Vitya, I’m certain this letter will reach you, even though I’m now behind the German front line, behind the barbed wire of the Jewish ghetto. I won’t receive your answer, though; I won’t be here to receive it. I want you [...]
“Life and Fate” – Vasily Grossman
April 4th, 2012 · No Comments · Uncategorized, Writing, WW2
During a German artillery attack on the right bank of the Volga during the Battle of Stalingrad: Suddenly he realised what had happened: the oil-tanks were on fire. Flaming oil was streaming past towards the Volga. It seemed impossible to escape from the liquid fire. It leaped up, humming and crackling, from the streams of [...]
Tags:description·Russia·Stalingrad·war·writing·WW2
“The Guns of August 1914”, Barbara Tuchman
April 1st, 2012 · No Comments · History, Uncategorized
“Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans,” Bismark had predicted would ignite the next war. The assassination of the Austrian heir apparent, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by Serbian nationalists on June 28, 1914, satisfied his condition… War pressed against every frontier. Suddenly dismayed, governments struggled and twisted to fend it off. It was no use. Agents [...]
“The Guns of August 1914”, Barbara Tuchman
April 1st, 2012 · No Comments · History, Quotes, Uncategorized
In Whitehall that evening, Sir Edward Grey, standing with a friend at the window as the street lamps below were being lit, made the remark that has since epitomized the hour: “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.
John F. Kennedy] was so impressed by the book, he gave copies to his cabinet and principal military advisers, and commanded them to read it.”[4] In One Minute to Midnight on the Cuban Missile Crisis, Michael Dobbs notes the deep impression Guns had on Kennedy. He often quoted from it and wanted “every officer in the Army” to read it as well. Subsequently, “[t]he secretary of the Army sent copies to every U.S. military base in the world.[5] Kennedy drew from The Guns of August to help in dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis, including the profound and unpredictable implications a rapid escalation of the situation could have.[6][7]">“The Guns of August 1914”, Barbara Tuchman
The Guns of August is an extraordinary example of the role that good history can play in policy making. In an extraordinary historical coincidence, The Guns of August won the Pulitzer Prize in the year before the Cuban Missile Crisis, allowing President Kennedy to learn practical lessons about the relationship between the military and political leaders in the lead up to war that might literally have saved the world.
According to Wikipedia:
“[President John F. Kennedy] was so impressed by the book, he gave copies to his cabinet and principal military advisers, and commanded them to read it.”[4] In One Minute to Midnight on the Cuban Missile Crisis, Michael Dobbs notes the deep impression Guns had on Kennedy. He often quoted from it and wanted “every officer in the Army” to read it as well. Subsequently, “[t]he secretary of the Army sent copies to every U.S. military base in the world.[5] Kennedy drew from The Guns of August to help in dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis, including the profound and unpredictable implications a rapid escalation of the situation could have.[6][7]
March 30th, 2012 · No Comments · Nuclear Weapons, Uncategorized
Echoes of the secret meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence angered the Cabinet members who had been left out and who belonged to the sternly pacifist wing of the party. Henry Wilson learned he was regarded as the Villain of the proceedings and that they are ‘calling for my head’. At this time began [...]
Tags:JFK·Nuclear Weapons·war·WW1
