RapierFugue
Posts: 4740
Joined: 3/16/2006
From: London, England
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LinnaeaBorealis
I admit it I am reading a ficionalized account of the lynching epidemic in the South around the turn of the last century.
I admit it is hard to read in spots due to the descriptions of the brutality.
I admit it I am reading it anyway, because I think it's important to remember these things.
I admit I did a similar thing with a non-fiction book called, simply, "Holocaust"; rather than try to weave a tale or hold a particular narrative, it is "simply" a day-by-day account, as best can be worked out from meticulous and painstaking research, of the numbers and incidents surrounding the treatment of Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals and dissidents, by the Nazi regime. What shocks is the flat, somewhat dry tone; there’s no need for invention, emotion or hyperbole when dealing with such a subject – the facts speak wholly and entirely for themselves.
It also avoids deliberately trying to target or knock-down any of the denier lies or obfuscations, relying instead on incredibly well-researched facts, and sheer weight of numbers and, in not seeking to target the lies with “answers”, it answers them all the more powerfully. You find yourself thinking “ah, right, so that lie can’t be true then, nor that one, nor that ...”.
I admit I cried several times while reading it, not so much at the scale of the loss of life, although that was bad enough, but more at the de-humanisation of the victims and the petty cruelty of their treatment. And the fact that it wasn’t some Grand Plan from day one, as is often portrayed, but instead evolved as a hideous progression of a group’s (actually, more than one group, in fact) hatred of a people. And is all the more vile and shocking as a result.
I admit I don’t think I was quite the same person after reading it. I admit I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Holocaust-Nazi-Persecution-Murder-Jews/dp/0192804367/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296304691&sr=1-5
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RE: I Admit It I........ - 
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