RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
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Lest we forget
German Nazis indulged in an orgy of book-burning that had no parallels in the 20th century. This monument is a pertinent and timely reminder of how destructive intolerance is
NIGHT OF INFAMY: (L to R) The Library memorial to nazi book burnings at this spot of Bebelplatz in Berlin on May 10 1933, in the background Saint Hedwig's Cathedral; a further book burning took place the next day in the nearby Opernplatz
[(L to R) Kemmi.1/CC and Pahl and Georg/Bundesarchiv/CC]
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
ART IN THE OPEN
The Library
Bebelplatz, Berlin
THE evening of Wednesday May 10 1933 was bleak and rainy in Berlin.
Over 40,000 people had gathered in Kaiser Franz Josef Platz, now Bebelplatz, as Nazi German students from the adjoining Friedrich Wilhelms University (today Humboldt University), accompanied by many of the teaching staff, gleefully set fire to a large pile of over 20,000 books.
An SS military band played and close to midnight Joseph Goebbels, the German minister for propaganda addressed the gathering thus: “Entrust to the flames the intellectual garbage of the past.”
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