East West Notes

“A world of meaning is lost when these views of racial ideology, the brutalization of war and the state-run process of extermination dominate our understanding of the Holocaust because the question "Why did the Nazis and other Germans burn the Hebrew Bible?" demands a historical imagination that captures Germans' culture, sensibilities, and historical memories.”
― Alon Confino, A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination from Persecution to Genocide

“The problem was that the Duke wanted status not a job, to be recognised rather than to contribute.”
― Andrew Lownie, Traitor King

“Claims for compensation for physical damage through sterilization and for psychological damage through incarceration were not recognized for this reason. Claims for lost possessions were rejected on the basis of a wholesale prejudice that Gypsies did not own possessions. Claims for compensation for lost income on the basis of a reduction of earning capacity (as a result of physical and psychological damage and years lost due to imprisonment) were rejected on the grounds that Gypsies were unlikely to have sought employment even under more favourable circumstances. Like the German Jews, the Roms had been stripped of their citizenship rights by the Nazi regime's racist legislation.”
― Yaron Matras, I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies

“The parade, the participation of children, the public mockery, the photographs - all of these were essential elements of prewar anti-Jewish actions. The public humiliation of Jews in German localities followed a script from 1933 through the deportations in 1941-1943. Germans knew this script and followed it as they deported the Jews.”
― Alon Confino, A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination from Persecution to Genocide