Black Earth

"It is tempting to imagine that a simple idea in the minds of simple people decades past and thousands of miles away can explain a complex event."

Timothy Snyder

Black Earth

Several years ago I was floating through Westwater Canyon with my friend Doug. The conversation was on the affairs of our nation and all of the disasters that were continuously circulating the news, from the wars in the Middle East, to climate change, to the latest school shooting. He then said something that I will never forget: "America is a state of fear, one that feels and acts like pre-Nazi Germany." That statement took me off guard, because even though I know a lot about World War II, and I know a lot about the Holocaust, I didn't understand it. I didn't understand the events that led up to it, or how the events that could lead up to something so horrendous could have even happened. I don't think many people do. I also think, that this is a huge error on our part, to write off such a complex event as something so simple, something we as a country are supposedly immune from.

Black Earth, by Timothy Snyder, is the most important book I've read this year (possibly even more important than Missoula). It is an in depth look into the history of the Holocaust, which is more complicated than I ever thought. It wasn't just a racist ideology implemented by a man with enough power to kill millions in mechanized death camps. It was infinitely more complicated. We often forget, or aren't even taught, that the "denial of citizenship, usually by the destruction of states, was what permitted the mass murder of the Jews." 

Looking at such an in depth history of the holocaust is terrifying for me. I think this is because of how much it has been swept under the rug. It's been acknowledged, but in a simple form that denies the complexities that are always present when human beings are involved. Most of the murders were committed by a bullet in the back of the head, and that takes an awful lot of murderers. It wasn't a secret that it was happening either. In eastern Europe, people knew, it was public and prevalent. 

Black Earth explains why we should take the Holocaust as a warning. Many of the preconditions that existed then exist now. Limited resources (food and potable water) to climate change all create different new crises. People look for people to blame for their hunger, or for reasons to justify taking the resources from others. We must look back and understand the Holocaust if we ever want to prevent one happening in the future. We must learn from our past if we are to preserve our future.