Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning | Timothy Snyder (2017)
Published 2017-10-27
“Holocaust studies have moved into memorial mode without having achieved satisfactory explanation,” says Yale Professor, Timothy Snyder.
The renowned academic and public intellectual was speaking to an invited audience at University College Dublin. In his talk, he argued that “the memorial mode” is taking up the space needed for “explanatory work” on the Holocaust.
This memorial mode, he said, has allowed us “to fall back into national modes of discussing the Holocaust because when one discusses memory one invariably discusses a national memory and almost always one's national memory”.
According to Professor Snyder, there is data to back up this assertion. “The last time I looked, [which was a couple of years ago] well over 90 per cent of the conferences devoted to the Holocaust were not devoted to the Holocaust, but they were devoted to the memory of the Holocaust which is a quite different subject.”
Using primary sources, particularly Jewish primary sources, the author of Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, developed his arguments to explain the Holocaust.
He recounted the events from 1933 – 1945 and explained how “ecological panic” and “the State” were key factors in the Holocaust.
Following the lecture, Professor Snyder took part in a questions and answers session chaired by Professor Robert Gerwarth from the UCD School of History, University College Dublin.
Timothy Snyder is the Housum Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1997, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. Before joining the faculty at Yale in 2001, he held fellowships in Paris, Vienna, and Warsaw, and an Academy Scholarship at Harvard. He speaks five and reads ten European languages.
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All Comments (21)
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God bless you Timothy Snyder.
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Fascinating presentation. I always learn new things from Professor Snyder.
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Another enlightening lecture from one of Americas foremost thinkers and scholars.
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Thanks for Uploading.
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Are there any Timothy Snyder t-shirts on sale?
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Superbly done.
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Illuminating, insightful and as far as my knowledge goes, original. An impressive piece of work.
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Timothy Snyder is one of my most admired academics across all fields of study.
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Brilliant.
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Thank you Professor! I hope he will be holding some lectures in Italy.
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High quality video! Thank you!
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Yep Prof. Snyder, Your work and It's affects, have opened fo you,a path of a life'spersutes like nunother will follow Placing your legacy amongst the Greatest of History. I am honored to have ben taught by You. Thank You Sir , C&E*Ca.USA
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Imagine if Hitler had taken a slower approach, a la the Monroe doctrine. The US took 80 years to claim and occupy most of the continental territory. 1. That's a scary thought - slow European Holocaust 2. It shows how our own US history was in fact a slow Holocaust for pre American peoples. The parallels are scary. If we think about this in depth, the US was not the first to do this either. What we need to do is to continue to fight these urges, don't follow Hitler's idea of competition, but strive for what he called the Jewish ideas of cohabitation and mutual success. And not just when it's convenient.
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Min 9:00 Does the social construct of race inevitably lead to racism? 🤔 Brilliant lecture BTW
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Ok
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I just heard about this guy, but for some reason he's disabled the comments on all his own videos so I'll post here. This guy seems very adamant about manipulation of social media using bots and other tactics being very prominent and not a small problem, which I agree with. But he also seem to be very adamant about that this influence comes from outside the United States. I was considering getting one of his books, but was wondering if anyone could direct me to some information about his position on deep state and corruption coming from within the US? Just so many people trying to make excuses for the US right now that I'd like to be informed before investing my time in his work. Thanks. Also, you might want to tip him about that the younger generation will not listen to him if he blocks the comment section. Interactivity is probably the biggest advantage a platform such as youtube have over regular TV and young people today often demand it, they won't listen to people who won't listen to them I think is the principle there, can't say I disagree.
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I can understand that the nuremberg laws and antisemitism didn’t cause the holocaust but it’s hard to see how it could of happened without them.
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What about what is happening and has been happening for 400 years?
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I never blame German for Holocaust. I live in indonesia, in 1997 financial crisi asian flue, the locals blame chinese Indonesia for oil prices hike and collapse of the currency. Chinese indonesia population only 1%. many chinese die and their house burn. and Local Gov Soeharto at that time did not counter this argument. If many people believe it, it become a mainstream belief without Facts. this is principle of religious people. The same case with German, their gov at that time did not counter Hitler argument with facts. eventually, it become mainstream belief. 😔 Good decent citizen can be a mass murderer if they are facing hardship and found out its threat.
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It’s a nice theory, but fails I believe. The Jews of the Netherlands were citizens of the state. The state was not destroyed, instead the SS was imposed on top in place of the Dutch government which was in London. It was Dutch policemen who delivered deportation orders to Jews. Instead the Dutch government ceded the state to the Germans by fleeing. In Belgium where the king stayed the casualty rate among Jews was much less. A better question would be to ask what remained of the state. In France which had a collaborationist state Jews had an even better chance to survive.
