#history

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

The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler. ↗

— Franz Kafka

#history #instant #mankind #strides #taken

From the time I was a little boy I found myself reading history when I had a choice. I read a lot of things, but history had a special appeal for me. ↗

— Donald Kagan

#boy #choice #found #had #history

History had its own way of explaining things. The way historians explain things is by telling a story. ↗

— Donald Kagan

#explaining #had #historians #history #own

Throughout the human experience people have read history because they felt that it was a pleasure and that it was in some way instructive. The profession of professor of history has taken it in a very different direction. ↗

— Donald Kagan

#different #direction #experience #felt #history

Without history we are the prisoners of the accident of where and when we were born. ↗

— Donald Kagan

#born #history #prisoners #were #where

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the United States entered into World War II to protect our way of life and to help liberate those who had fallen under the Axis occupation. The country rallied to produce one of the largest war efforts in history. Young men volunteered to join the Armed Forces, while others were drafted. Women went to work in factories and took military jobs. Everyone collected their used cooking grease and metals to be used for munitions. They rationed gas and groceries. Factories now were producing airplanes, weapons, and military vehicles. They all wanted to do their part. And they did, turning America into a war machine. The nation was in full support to help our boys win the war and come home quickly. Grandpa wanted to do his part too. ↗

— Kara Martinelli

#community #family #history #wwii #family

A Germany team should not be afraid going into a tournament. History shows that we can raise the level of our game when it matters. ↗

— Oliver Kahn

#game #germany #going #history #into

If history is any indication, all truths will eventually turn out to be false. ↗

— Dean Kamen

#eventually #false #history #indication #out

Mitt Romney has a history of being a great job creator. Secondly, he was a great governor. He went from billions of dollars in the hole when he became governor to billions of dollars in surplus when he left. And he went from the loss of tens of thousands jobs when he became governor to the creation of 40,000 new jobs when he left office. ↗

— John Kasich

#being #billions #creation #creator #dollars