|
|
Books > History > European history > From 1900
In August 1945 Great Britain, France, the USSR, and the United
States established a tribunal at Nuremberg to try military and
civilian leaders of the Nazi regime. G. M. Gilbert, the prison
psychologist, had an unrivaled firsthand opportunity to watch and
question the Nazi war criminals. With scientific dispassion he
encouraged Goeering, Speer, Hess, Ribbentrop, Frank, Jodl, Keitel,
Streicher, and the others to reveal their innermost thoughts. In
the process Gilbert exposed what motivated them to create the
distorted Aryan utopia and the nightmarish worlds of Auschwitz,
Dachau, and Buchenwald. Here are their day-to-day reactions to the
trial proceedings their off-the-record opinions of Hitler, the
Third Reich, and each other their views on slave labour, death
camps, and the Jews their testimony, feuds, and desperate
maneuverings to dissociate themselves from the Third Reich's defeat
and Nazi guilt. Dr. Gilbert's thorough knowledge of German,
deliberately informal approach, and complete freedom of access at
all times to the defendants give his spellbinding, chilling study
an intimacy and insight that remains unequaled.
A leading Yugoslav dissident offers valuable insights into the
demise of communism and the bloody mayhem that followed in its
wake.
The collapse of communism in Europe liberated Yugoslavia only to
see it plunge into a brutal civil war between religious, ethnic,
and nationalist factions. Why did communism's nonviolent end ignite
a nationalist war that has exacted such a high price in human
suffering?
International affairs scholar Svetozar Stojanovi? a member of the
famous Praxis group that resisted the communists has studied the
developments in his war-torn homeland. He examines the internal and
external factors that forced the transition from communist rule to
democracy and a free-market economy. His insider's,
behind-the-scenes look at the internal power struggles that pull
factions in various directions, examines the cultural weaknesses of
communism, the "capitalist encirclement" of Marxist-socialist
economies, communism's ideological decay, and the roles played by
Gorbachev and Yeltsin. The Fall of Yugoslavia also examines the
international reaction to these historic developments. Stojanovi?
urges the West not to fall victim to a "triumphalistic temptation,"
with as yet unforeseen consequences, but to anticipate and face the
problems in this volatile Yugoslav region.
This book revises what we thought we knew about one of the most
famous witch hunts in European history. Between 1608 and 1614,
thousands of witchcraft accusations were leveled against men,
women, and children in the northern Spanish kingdom of Navarre. The
Inquisition intervened quickly but incompetently, and the
denunciations continued to accelerate. As the phenomenon spread,
children began to play a crucial role. Not only were they
reportedly victims of the witches' harmful magic, but hundreds of
them also insisted that witches were taking them to the Devil's
gatherings against their will. Presenting important archival
discoveries, Lu Ann Homza restores the perspectives of illiterate,
Basque-speaking individuals to the history of this shocking event
and demonstrates what could happen when the Spanish Inquisition
tried to take charge of a liminal space. Because the Spanish
Inquisition was the body putting those accused of witchcraft on
trial, modern scholars have depended upon Inquisition sources for
their research. Homza's groundbreaking book combines new readings
of the Inquisitional evidence with fresh archival finds from
non-Inquisitional sources, including local secular and religious
courts, and from notarial and census records. Expanding our
understanding of this witch hunt as well as the history of
children, community norms, and legal expertise in early modern
Europe, Village Infernos and Witches' Advocates is required reading
for students and scholars of the Spanish Inquisition and the
history of witchcraft in early modern Europe.
For nearly fifty years, Sala Kirschner kept a secret: She had
survived five years as a slave in seven different Nazi work camps.
Living in America after the war, she kept hidden from her children
any hint of her epic, inhuman odyssey. She held on to more than 350
letters, photographs, and a diary without ever mentioning them.
Only in 1991, on the eve of heart surgery, did she suddenly present
them to Ann, her daughter, and offer to answer any questions Ann
wished to ask.
When Sala first reported to a camp in Geppersdorf, Germany, at
the age of sixteen, she thought it would be for six weeks. Five
years later, she was still at a labor camp and only she and two of
her sisters remained alive of an extended family of fifty.
"Sala's Gift" is a heartbreaking, eye-opening story of survival
and love amidst history's worst nightmare.
|
|