#easter

And thus to my final and most melancholy point: a great number of Stalin's enforcers and henchmen in Eastern Europe were Jews. And not just a great number, but a great proportion. The proportion was especially high in the secret police and 'security' departments, where no doubt revenge played its own part, as did the ideological attachment to Communism that was so strong among internationally minded Jews at that period: Jews like David Szmulevski. There were reasonably strong indigenous Communist forces in Czechoslovakia and East Germany, but in Hungary and Poland the Communists were a small minority and knew it, were dependent on the Red Army and aware of the fact, and were disproportionately Jewish and widely detested for that reason. Many of the penal labor camps constructed by the Nazis were later used as holding pens for German deportees by the Communists, and some of those who ran these grim places were Jewish. Nobody from Israel or the diaspora who goes to the East of Europe on a family-history fishing-trip should be unaware of the chance that they will find out both much less and much more than the package-tour had promised them. It's easy to say, with Albert Camus, 'neither victims nor executioners.' But real history is more pitiless even than you had been told it was. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#camus #communism #czechoslovakia #david-szmulevski #east-germany

Well, I think he's right to notice that there is a difference in attitudes and even in the broadest sense of world view between Eastern Europe and Western Europe. Which is old and which is new is an interesting question, and I almost think that maybe he's got it backwards. ↗

— Robert Kagan

#attitudes #backwards #between #broadest #broadest sense

The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart. ↗

— Ryszard Kapuscinski

#eastern #heart #learning #literature #poetry

I remember when the wave of Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek and these beautiful Hispanic women came into light, and I looked up to them and I loved them, but I was like, 'Where are Middle Eastern women?' ↗

— Kim Kardashian

#came #eastern #hayek #hispanic #i

I am a living illustration of Bosnian mixing and converting. My grandparents lived in eastern Herzegovina. Very poor. The Turks came and brought Islam. There were three brothers in the family. One was Orthodox Christian. The other two took Islam to survive. ↗

— Emir Kusturica

#bosnian #brothers #brought #came #christian

If a great part comes up and the guy's meant to have an Eastern European accent, great; but if it's a bad part I won't take it. ↗

— Goran Visnjic

#bad #comes #eastern #european #great

I stepped away to find out more about myself, which I was having difficulty doing as a football player. I got a chance to travel the world. I studied Eastern philosophy, and I've grown as a person so much. ↗

— Ricky Williams

#away #ball player #chance #difficulty #doing

We need repentance. You see, repentance is not only going to a priest and confessing. We must free ourselves from the obsession of thoughts. We fall many times during our life, and it is absolutely necessary to reveal everything [in Confession] to a priest who is a witness to our repentance. Repentance is the renewal of life. This means we must free ourselves from all our negative traits and turn toward absolute good. No sin is unforgivable except the sin of unrepentance. ↗

— Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

#confession #eastern-orthodoxy #forgiveness #good #obsession

I remain committed to a balanced policy, which will protect our national interests both on our eastern border - I mean with Russia - and of course with the European Union. ↗

— Viktor Yanukovych

#border #both #committed #course #eastern

I'm against the capturing of Eastern Orthodox temples. ↗

— Vladimir Zhirinovsky

#capturing #eastern #i #orthodox #temples