“In 1900, imperial Germany safeguarded the rule of law and ensured the protection of its citizens, including Jews. Four decades later, the Third Reich attempted to annihilate the Jews and, as an occupying power in the Polish village of Jedwabne,… — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share Image
“How do we understand prejudice, hatred, and violence in the context of modern societies, like our own, among people much like ourselves, among men… — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share Image
“For it was the rejection of the possibility of human solidarity with strangers—the critical as well as moral presupposition of civil society—that the National… — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share Image
“the ancient blood libel: that every year at Passover, Jews ritually slaughter Christian children and use their blood to bake matzo.” — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share Image
“He even pursued the story of a four-year-old girl who bragged that her father, a Jewish merchant of herculean physical stature, had thrown Winter… — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share Image
“Moritz Stern’s Source Contributions to the Position of the Popes on the Jews, which gathered together the medieval papacy’s impressive record denouncing the ritual-murder… — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share Image
“Ippolit Liutostanskii, a Polish-born, defrocked Catholic priest, who, after being tried for rape, turned to anti-Semitic polemics in order to earn money.” — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share
“these instances bore none of the harrowing features of racially motivated torture, mutilation, and cruelty endemic to Euro-American lynching of African Americans. In Germany, the ritual did not culminate as it did in roughly five thousand cases in the United States between the end of the American Civil War and 1968—in actual human sacrifice.” — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share
“they called in the Prussian army to restore order and protect the Jews, who numbered just over three hundred men, women, and children in… — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share Image
“The murder of Ernst Winter and the violence that followed provided the struggling anti-Semitic parties with an opportunity to revitalize their movement.” — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share
“Efes Damim (No Blood), was originally published in Wilna in 1837 and included text in Hebrew, Latin, Russian, and Polish. The book was subsequently… — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share Image
“As the army arrived in the region, the otherwise obedient West Prussian citizens stoned the troops, denouncing the men in spiked helmets as a… — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share Image
“Print could be wielded by the purveyors of prejudice as well as by the combatants for civilization” — Helmut Walser Smith Copy Share Image
