Bloody Lands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin | Timothy Snyder

In the very heart of Europe, during the middle of the 20th century, the Nazi and Soviet regimes exterminated about 14 million people. The territory where these victims died covers the space from Central Poland to Western Russia, including Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic countries. During the period of the formation of National Socialism and Stalinism (1933–1938), during the joint occupation of Poland by Germany and the USSR (1939–1941), and later during the German-Soviet War (1941–1945), the region experienced a wave of mass violence of unprecedented proportions. Jews, Ukrainians, Poles, Belarusians and Baltic peoples suffered the most. The work of the American historian Timothy Snyder summarizes these most tragic events in the history of Eastern Europe in the 20th century.

"Bloody Lands" explores the shared nature of two totalitarian systems—Nazi Germany and Stalin's USSR. The book paints a broad picture not only of the Holocaust but also of the crimes of the Stalinist regime, especially in Ukrainian lands, starting in 1933.

This work is key to understanding the history of Ukraine as a territory where two bloody totalitarian projects intersected. Snyder convincingly shows that both systems were based on similar principles: the devaluation of human life, the destruction of dignity, and the eradication of memory.