World War 2

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• SOURCE: CNN
  4/29/2022
  

  "Pachinko" Tells History of Korean Women in Mid-20th Century Japan

  The Apple+ series, based in a fictionalized narrative of Korean immigration to Japan, concludes with interview footage of eight women, now all more than 90 years old, who lived this history. 

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• SOURCE: World Socialist Website
  4/25/2022
  

  World Socialist Website: Tim Snyder Changes Conclusions on Ukrainian Fascism

  Have influential historians of Eastern European nationalism and antisemitism softened their assessment of Ukrainian nationalism because of the Russian invasion? 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  4/7/2022
  

  The Forgotten Story of the "Red Ball Express"

  by Matthew Delmont

  "From August through November 1944, 23,000 American truck drivers and cargo loaders – 70% of whom were Black – moved more than 400,000 tons of ammunition, gasoline, medical supplies and rations to battlefronts in France, Belgium and Germany."

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  4/4/2022
  

  Richard Overy's New Book Tells WWII as Global History of Imperial Conflict

  by Daniel Immerwahr

  "Whatever else the Second World War was about, it was, on both sides, a war for empire."

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• SOURCE: Fox 32
  3/14/2022
  

  Chicago's Ukrainian Community Includes Many Who Escaped WWII; They See a Repeated Nightmare

  The Ukrainian community in Chicago includes many who fled either Nazi or Stalinist forces as children 80 years ago. 

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• SOURCE: Just Security
  3/9/2022
  

  How the Soviet Union Helped Establish the Crime of Aggressive War

  by Francine Hirsch

  Putin's claims to "denazify" Ukraine are an egregious affront to the historical role of the Soviet Union in establishing the Nuremberg tribunal, and its insistence in prosecuting aggressive war itself as a crime. 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  3/7/2022
  

  The History of the Holocaust Site Recently Struck by a Russian Missile

  by Jeffrey Veidlinger

  The memorialization of the Nazi killing field at Babi Yar near Kyiv has long been entangled with the competing versions of history favored by communists, Ukrainian and Russian nationalists, and the descendants of Jews, Roma, and other victims of wartime massacres. 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  10/26/2022
  

  Putin's Claim of Denazification in Ukraine is Absurd in Light of History

  by Jeffrey Veidlinger

  "Putin’s selective telling of the past exaggerates the legacy of Nazism in Ukraine while ignoring the state’s historic struggle for pluralism and democracy. There is a good reason for this: he fears democracy more than he fears Nazism."

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• SOURCE: Financial Times
  2/23/2022
  

  Putin's Denial of Ukrainian Statehood Carries Dark Echoes

  by Timothy Snyder

  "History cannot stop a war. But it can help us, at least, to understand how one begins, which is with arrogance and lies."

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• SOURCE: Harvard Crimson
  2/16/2022
  

  Harvard Law Prof Responds to Critics of His "Comfort Women" Claims, Fails to Squelch Controversy

  Two Harvard historians (and several colleagues at other instituitons) say that Mark Ramseyer's defense of his article claiming Korean "comfort women" freely contracted their labor as sex workers serving Japanese soldiers during World War II ignores the substance of their criticism. 

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• SOURCE: Forward
  2/12/2022
  

  Was Forgetting the Holocaust a Pillar of West German Rebuilding?

  Harald Jähner's book contents that the West German public's view of the nation's recent past grew darker as the years passed, but in the immediate aftermath of the war, a mood of adventurousness and liberation was widespread – at the cost of avoiding discussions of atrocity.

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• 2/6/2022
  

  Art's Historical License in Netflix's "The Edge of War"

  by Yoav Tenembaum

  The recent Netflix film's treatment of the Munich Accords reads backwards from the outcomes of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy to argue, wrongly, that the Prime Minister's intent was to buy time for the British to rearm. 

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• 1/30/2022
  

  Richard Tregaskis Reported from "The Road to Tokyo"

  by Ray E. Boomhower

  War reporter Richard Tregaskis followed the success of "Guadalcanal Diary" with "The Road To Tokyo," embedded with the crew of the USS Ticonderoga and even riding on a bombing mission against the Japanese Kure Naval Arsenal in June, 1945.

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• SOURCE: Jacobin
  1/27/2022
  

  Remember, too, the Victims Nazis Singled Out for their Politics

  by Adam J. Sacks

  A German organization dedicated to the remembrance of left-wing victims of the Nazis has had its charitable status revoked. While the history of Nazism's persecution and murder of Jews and other groups is rightly commemorated, Nazism's violence against the political left has been obscured. 

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• 1/30/2022
  

  Neville Chamberlain: Unsung Hero of WWII

  by Luke Reader

  A new Netflix film should prompt a reassessment of the legacy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who arguably succeeded in saving Britain and the European opposition to Hitler through a two-pronged strategy that used appeasement to buy time for rearmament. 

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• SOURCE: The Economist
  1/24/2022
  

  New Film "Munich" Offers Revised and (Somewhat) Sympathetic Portrait of Chamberlain

  The film portrays Chamberlain as less weak-willed and more overconfident in his ability to secure peace. 

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• 1/23/2022
  

  Antisemitism is Toxic and Persistent. It's Not Inevitable

  by Ralph Seliger

  International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27) follows an armed hostage incident at a Texas synagogue. The author reflects on moments when societies have chosen to embrace or reject antisemitism at moments of crisis and concludes that while the risk to Jews today is real, it is not inevitable.

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• SOURCE: WBUR
  1/17/2022
  

  How one WWII Division Set the Stage for Modern Skiing

  McKay Jenkins of the University of Delaware's new book tells the story of the US Army's 10th Mountain Division, how they fought on the slopes of Italy, and helped develop the modern sport of skiing. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/7/2022
  

  Was "Slaughterhouse Five" Vonnegut's PTSD Novel?

  Is examining Kurt Vonnegut's writing through the lens of suspected posttraumatic stress disorder a worthwhile line of inquiry? 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  1/5/2022
  

  Lawrence Brooks, Oldest Surviving WWII Veteran, Dies at 112

  "Throughout his service in Australia, Brooks enjoyed a level of freedom he'd never experienced before, either in the military or at home. In interviews with the National World War II Museum, he marveled over that country's acceptance of Black soldiers, which were a marked contrast to the racist Jim Crow laws of the south at the time."