alkaios commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
Since March has officially ended what was everyone's favourite book this month? (If you can't choose a favourite then choose a top 3!) Mine was definitely Releasing 10 by Chloe Walsh đ
alkaios started reading...

Call for the Dead (George Smiley, #1)
John le Carré
alkaios TBR'd a book

38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia
Philippe Sands
alkaios wrote a review...
Extremely informative, interesting, and absolutely heartwrenching. I picked this book up on recommendation from my mum, she said that, since she read it some years ago, it's one of the few books that has really stuck in her mind. I think it will be the same for me. This is a book I will remember, and I'm certain it is a book I will revisit. I went into this with minimal legal or historical understanding of the terms genocide and crimes against humanity, in hindsight, all I truly understood were the definitions. Now I feel I understand much more, if not yet all of it - I don't think this is the sort of information that is easy to process on first attempt.
I found the chapters about Sands' family really moving. I was so interested in hearing his methods of investigation. They also felt just that much more heartbreaking, perhaps became they were written from a more personal perspective. I think that they helped to contextualise some of the extent of the situation Lautapacht and Lemkin were trying to address with their terms, and why it was such a struggle. The book also felt easier to read, as someone unfamiliar with law, because the more law heavy parts were interspersed throughout. I feel I have learnt a lot - and that I still have much more to learn.
alkaios finished a book

East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"
Philippe Sands
alkaios commented on x10thbird's update
x10thbird finished a book

Oliver Twist
Charles Dickens
alkaios made progress on...
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alkaios TBR'd a book

The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery
Witold Pilecki
alkaios is interested in reading...

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Omar El Akkad
alkaios is interested in reading...

Schindlerâs List
Thomas Keneally
alkaios made progress on...
alkaios finished a book

The Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar Wilde
alkaios made progress on...
Post from the East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity" forum
"I was twelve, not a child any more. I stopped being a child in 1939." "One woman, coming to terms with a feeling that somehow she had abandoned her group to save herself."
This feels so extremely horrific, perhaps partly because I can actual comprehend this tragedy in a way I find hard to comprehend the mass killings or the concentration camps. I know those tragedies happened but, in a way, I just can't grasp them - the scale was so large. Does that make sense? But I can better picture this young girl, and the absolute impossible nature of her decision (and the fact it still weighed on her seventy years later is heartbreaking). It scares me how a 12 year old could be forced to become an adult.
Post from the East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity" forum
"The philosopher Martin Buber, who lectured and lived in Lemberg, became an intellectual influence, opposing Zionism as a form of abhorrent nationalism and holding to the view that a Jewish state in Palestine would inevitably oppress the Arab inhabitants."
I know nothing else about this philosopher or his life, except from this brief mention. But I find it crazy how, after/during the horrors being justified with 'nationalism' more people didn't share this perspective.
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