Arthur Koestler had his flaws, including a long devotion to Socialism. But, like his good friend Orwell (who shared that trait), he was a fierce opponent of Communism Soviet-style, having almost been burned in its fierce annihilative furnace early on. … Continue reading →
Commenter David Foster has written a two-part book review of historian and author Sebastian Haffner’s Defying Hitler (part I is here, part II here). I would say “read the whole thing.” But I’ll amend that a bit and say instead, … Continue reading →
Joran van der Sloot, the man who almost certainly killed Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005, has confessed to murdering another young woman in Peru. Thus, justice of a sort will finally come—unfortunately, too late to save his latest victim, … Continue reading →
Last night I watched “Blind Spot,” a filmed interview with Traudl Junge, who was Hitler’s secretary during his last year and final days. It’s a remarkable document, although a very simple one: Ms. Junge, aged eighty or so at the … Continue reading →
[Every now and then I may post an excerpt from Milton Mayer’s They Thought They Were Free. The book, first published in 1955, is an exploration of Germans’ attitudes in the period leading up to WWII and including the war … Continue reading →
I’m reading the fascinating book They thought they were free: the Germans 1933-1945 by Milton Mayer (it’s also one of my book recommendations on the right sidebar). The author was an American journalist and educator who lived for a time … Continue reading →
By now you have probably read the remarkable story of Jaycee Lee Dugard, a twenty-nine-year-old woman who was kidnapped eighteen years ago by a couple named Phillip and Nancy Garrido. Jaycee was eleven at the time, and has been held … Continue reading →
The other evening I turned on the TV and came across this CNN documentary entitled “Escape from Jonestown.” I watched for the next two hours, because to my surprise it turned out to be riveting. Even though I recall Jonestown … Continue reading →
We may not be able to define evil, but most of us think we know it when we see it. Unfortunately, that leads to equations such as Bush=Hitler, or the bumper sticker I saw on a car yesterday that said, … Continue reading →
Over two years ago I wrote a post about Mohammed Atta’s eyes. In it, I quoted an airline employee who waited on Mohammed Atta early on the morning of 9/11, and described him thusly: It was just the look on … Continue reading →
As more details emerge on the background of the Virginia Tech shooter, it turns out that his history was one long, loud warning sign that something extremely bad was about to happen. So how is it that this young man—who … Continue reading →
[Part I here.] By early 1943, the time of the Rosenstrasse Protest, the Final Solution were well underway. The Nazis had been very careful about their policy of extermination of the Jews; one can view the entire operation as a … Continue reading →