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The banality of evil: from Auschwitz to Mariupol

insidethegatesThe YouTube channel "10 Questions to a Historian" featured an interview about the history of the Auschwitz death camp, which has become an undisputed symbol of Nazi crimes in World War II. This is the story of how some people (including educated and seemingly mentally healthy people) killed other people on a scale and systematic basis that had never been seen before. The "banality of evil" was that the virtue of loyalty turned bureaucrats into committed genocide performers.

Today, the Russian-Ukrainian war is the most urgent and painful problem for our country. The entire civilised world is paying attention to the events in Ukraine. Today, Russia is destroying the post-World War II system of international relations, undermining international peace and security by waging the largest continental war in Europe since World War II against a sovereign state. Now, just as eighty years ago, Ukraine is fighting against totalitarianism; fighting for the future - its own, and the future of Europe and the entire civilised world.

With the unfolding of russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine, everyone felt that the memory of the crimes and experiences of the Second World War was being reflected in current events. The students already knew the interpretation of the words "genocide", "filtration camp", "Gauleiter", "ghetto" from their history classes, when they studied the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. But the worst thing is that they have all heard these words in the context of the present, and they have encountered them in the twenty-first century.

Analysing the feedback, we can state that the meeting with Anatolii Podolskyi was definitely not without effect, as everyone received new historical knowledge and enjoyed the emotional presentation of the material.

Yuliia Rudenko, PhD, Associate Professor

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