Book Review | Nuance in the Fight between Good and Evil

1939: A People’s History By Frederick Taylor W. W. Norton & Company; 448 pp; $30 Library shelves are full of books whose titles celebrate, commemorate or contemplate a single momentous year: 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England; 1774: The Long Year of Revolution; 1776; 1917; 1941: The Year Germany Lost the War. One year, 1984, inspired author George Orwell in 1946 to forecast a dystopian, totalitarian future, which, some might argue, was prescient if premature. The year 1939, put under the microscope in this volume by British historian Frederick Taylor, is usually regarded as the start of World War II. The 12-month period Taylor memorializes really begins in September 1938, with the infamous Munich pact, when England and France signed over the German-speaking Sudetenland, part of Czechoslovakia—without the consent of the Czechs. It ends a year...

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How “Anti-Semite” Miklos Horthy Saved the Jews of Budapest

By Eliezer M. Rabinovich In 1944, Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy saved more Jews than anyone else in the world. Yet today, next to the efforts of heroic diplomats like Carl Lutz and Raoul Wallenberg, Horthy has become a forgotten footnote to history. The reason? At first glance, Horthy—a self-proclaimed anti-Semite and anti-Communist—was not exactly a hero for the textbooks. But the truth isn’t so simple. Closer examination shows that Horthy paid lip service to the Nazis while privately strategizing how to prevent deportation of the Jews. Horthy defied Hitler, took back partial power and forbade further deportations, ultimately preventing a quarter-million Hungarian Jews from perishing in the Holocaust. https://js.hscta.net/cta/current.js ...

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