📚🚶‍♀️Emily’s Walking Book Club Book Review: 📕The Past is Myself by Christabel Bielenberg

[@orglancs]

Yes, this is a truly great book by a great woman and deserves to be much better known than it is. I first read it years ago, when it first came out. I have been a life-long 'student' of nazism and authoritarianism of any colour and found it so revealing. That eipsode that you read touches on something so little known, that the invading Germans were welcomed with flowers and treats by those who had suffered horribly under forced Soviet rule. The slide into being in an Einsatzkommando and shooting Jewish children, hideous and horrifying though it was, seems almost logical and understandable after that. This is still an influence today between Russia and Ukraine, because many Ukrainians reacted in the same way when the German's invaded. They had been so abominably treated by the Soviets that they welcomed the Germans and even fought or worked for them. I met a German once, lived with his family for a while, who had been in the German occupying army in Ukraine and he told me about it and how he had helped Ukrainians to survive by stealing horse-,eat and giving it, illegally, to them. I met another, much younger man who had lost 12 years of his life because of the war, had been planning to study law, but had had to do 'National Service' first. He was still in the army qwhnen war broke out, fought th4rough the war, survived and then spent three years as a POW in England. He looked desperately sad, as if he was about to burst into tears any minute. He was as much a victim of the war as anyone, apart from the sheer luck of surviving. Her book shows how terrible the war must have been for so many Germans, but don't forget, they voted Hitler into power. There are contemporary videos on YT that show the hysterical ecstasy with which Hitler was greeted by the crowds. The tendency for weak, helpless people to worship power and to demand a 'strong' leader who will rescue them may yet destroy the world, if we are not careful.

[@emilyrhodeswriter]

Thank you so much for such an insightful comment. There is so much to think about in this book, thanks for drawing our attention to this aspect.

[@sarawoods1450]

It was a compelling read!

[@emilyrhodeswriter]

So glad you found it so compelling too!