Letter to the WSJ
Even Stalinist's Mother Admitted He Was Crazy
October 2, 2006; Page A11
In Abheek Bhattacharya's review of Paul Hollander's book "The End of Commitment"
(Bookmarks, Weekend Journal, Sept. 15), he writes about British historian Eric
Hobsbawm: "As late as 1994, Mr. Hobsbawm told an interviewer that, even if he
had
known in the mid-1930s that 'millions of people were dying in the Soviet
experiment,' he would have still supported it, for 'the chance of a new world
being
born in great suffering would still have been worth backing.'"
My mother was a friend of Eric Hobsbawm's mother and I visited the Hobsbawms
with
her, where I listened to Eric's arguments. He supported the sabotage of the
British
army and the war against Germany because his messiah, Joseph Stalin had a pact
with
Adolf Hitler. I argued that the Nazis would not only kill him but also his
mother
and his sister Rita. He quoted Joseph Stalin to me: "You cannot make an omelet
without breaking eggs."
I was horrified; only years later did I realize that he was a Jewish Adolf
Eichmann.
I repeated his views to his mother, and she was succinct. "Er ist meshugganah"
("He
is crazy").
A few years later I was in the 2nd Derbyshire Yeomanry when in the spring 1945
we
liberated Bergen Belsen concentration camp; there, I saw the real-life
consequences
of the megalomaniac musings of so-called historians. It is a shame Eric evaded
reality so that he did not have to acknowledge what his stupidity helped bring
in
blood and bones.
--
Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA
95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
michaelperelman.wordpress.com
