Most Holocaust history I've read gives the sense of a writer buried deep in a tunnel of paper archives. The writer minutely records the data presented from her spot in the tunnel, then draws big conclusions. Snyder's book feels substantially different, and reads very much like a meta-analysis. Focused on the antecedents of Jewish deaths (and those of others, such as Gypsies and Soviet prisoners), he shifts the analysis from psychology, culture, and religion and instead examines the relative fates of those who found themselves in locales where national governments were strong, weak, or nonexistent. Jews who were citizens of Germany at the beginning of the war survived at much higher rates than did those who came from countries whose states were effectively nullified, such as Poland. An important key to survival was being a citizen of a state which maintained a functioning bureaucracy and governing institutions. Jews who were citizens of the French Republic at the start of the war were more likely to survive than Jewish refugees from Poland to France, although all lived under the compromised and anti-Semitic Vichy regime.
Snyder's book is conceptually dizzying, difficult and worthwhile. His final analysis of the many ways in which today's world could tip toward a Holocaust-type catastrophe are convincing. From the conclusion: "We share Hitler's planet and several of his preoccupations; we have changed less than we think. We like our living space, we fantasize about destroying governments, we denigrate science, we dream of catastrophe."
No comments:
Post a Comment