Richard Fields here, reporting from Northern Europe. For the last three weeks I have been traveling in Poland and the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. I am now in Helsinki, Finland.
The recorded history and architecture of these countries goes back over 800 years. All of these countries have been independent nations only for a portion of that period. In the16th and 17th Centuries the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were ruled by one monarch and made up the largest and most populous Kingdom in Europe. Finland was part of the Swedish Kingdom for a few hundred years.
During World War II Poland, Finland and the Baltic States were the battlefield between Germany and the Soviet Union. Finland lost a lot of its Eastern territory to the Soviets. After the war, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were annexed into the Soviet Union. Anti-Soviet citizens of those Baltic countries were shipped into slavery and starvation in Siberia. They were replaced by ethnic Russians. Many of them and their descendants live there till this day. Poland became a satellite state to the Soviets. During the wartime occupation by Germany, upwards of 90% of the Jewish population in these countries was murdered. Over 6 million in total. I visited Auschwitz, one of the death camps where Jews were gassed to death by the millions.
I also visited the KGB "Headquarters" in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. The entire basement was a prison for anyone or the family of anyone who opposed the Soviet occupation. Those lucky enough to survive the prison were sent to labor camps in Siberia on the shores of the Arctic Ocean where they were forced to build their own shelters out of driftwood and dirt and to fish in the freezing arctic waters to provide fish for Soviet soldiers. If they survived they did so by "stealing" some of the fish they caught. Many of those imprisoned in the KGB Headquarters were taken to an execution chamber in the building and shot to death. I talked to one of the survivors of the Siberian labor camps. He was 35 before he had a meal large enough to feel full. The number of people killed by Stalin through executions and starvation is estimated to be between 9 million and 60 million.
Visiting this part of the world and learning its history is a stark reminder of how evil humans can be to each other if they are convinced that those they are killing or enslaving are less than human "others". Nazis killed Jews, the Roma and the disabled. The Soviets killed anyone considered not a true-believer in the Socialist/Communist narrative of the government.
Mark Twain and others are reported to have quipped that history does not repeat but it rhymes. There's a lot of rhyming going on right now. The Hamas ruled Arabs in Gaza killing Jews. On the anniversary of the Yom Kipper war, no less. The Israeli response is to level Gaza and kill anyone who gets in the way. When there is no real viable option to get out of the way.
Russia invaded Ukraine. To protect the interest of the Russian speaking people in Eastern Ukraine. Never mind that the Russian speakers in Ukraine are descendants of the Russians that were sent to Ukraine to replace 100,000 or more Ukrainians who were sent to Siberia during the Stalin era.
China would like to regain control of Taiwan. Because.
Voters in the United States are supporting politicians who would love to please their defense industry patrons by getting us involved by proxy in all these global conflicts. Voters are forgetting that the "other" in Russia and China is a nuclear power. And the ally in Israel is also well equipped with nuclear weaponry. And wars have a way of escalating.
Reporting from the Fields, I'm Richard Fields. See you next week.