SPIDER POV YEAAA

I never knew that the term 'genocide' was not coined in relation to the Holocaust, as I was taught, but specifically to refer to the mass killings and forced mass starvation of Soviet prisoners (1.25 million deaths within months) in 1941 by the German army. It's so disheartening to see so much erased and altered history in schools.

From the book: 'The now-conventional story is that Lemkin coined the word 'genocide' in response to Prime Minister Winston Churchill's radio broadcast of 24 august 1941, which is famous for these words: 'We are in the presence of a crime without a name.' However, Churchill's phrase should be put in the context of his immediately preceding sentences (...):

'As his [Hitler's] armies advance, whole districts are being exterminated. Scores of thousands, literally scores of thousands of executions in cold blood are being perpetrated by the German police troops upon the Russian patriots who defend their native soil. Since the Mongol invasions of Europe in the sixteenth century there has never been methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale or approaching such a scale. And this is but the beginning. Famine and pestilence have yet to follow in the bloody ruts of Hitler's tanks. We are in the presence of a crime without a name.''

'Whenever something went wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball.' Really wondering why so many people (irl) always seem to need an imaginary enemy. I see it so much around me with people blaming immigrants for Every Single Thing and it really makes me feel a bit hopeless that we'll ever reach a state of society that's built from love amd connection rather than hate.

Reading this for my studies. I've already read bits and pieces, and now the whole thing. Genuinely one of the most interesting books out there in the fields of famine, genocide, humanitarianism and public health