For Rebecca Knuth , the author of two books on book burnings and the destruction of libraries, books are the targets because they "are the embodiment of ideas and if you hold extreme beliefs you cannot tolerate anything that contradicts those beliefs or is in competition with them. Book burnings "are highly symbolic. When you destroy a book you are destroying your enemy and your enemy's beliefs," she said in an interview with CBC News.
In her research Knuth found that book burnings are seldom isolated barbaric acts. She explains that there are patterns and the book burners "are following out some kind of logical game plan.
Here is a list of some of the book burnings that have happened since the end of the Second World War. In December , Iranian forces defeated the autonomous Kurdish government, known as the Republic of Mahabad , which was formed in northern Iran during the Second World War. The victors burned all the Kurdish-language books they could find.
They also banned the teaching of Kurdish and closed Kurdish presses. It's an act of violence, a punishment, a deterrent, a death by proxy. To assume this is a futile act, a deluded, empty ritual, to think of it as something that has only happened at other times, to other people, in other places, is wrong.
Books were burning thousands of years ago, in other countries, and books are burning, here and now. That year residents in Binghamton, N. Bookforum has a long excerpt and a photo of a Binghamton burning. Another wave of comic book burnings followed the publication of Seduction of the Innocent , by American psychiatrist and comic book foe Fredric Wertham in In psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich was convicted of contempt of court in connection with his research on orgasm and his orgone energy accumulators.
On two occasions Reich's books were burned, overseen by the U. Food and Drug Administration. Books were burned in China as part of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, while about seven million people died during those years.
After their violent overthrow of Chile's elected government on Sept. In Drake, North Dakota the school board had "objectionable" books thrown into the school furnace. After learning about the burning, Vonnegut wrote to the school board chairman, "If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.
After many of the students studying the books refused to turn them in, "the board ordered that their lockers be searched," the Minot Daily News reported. Following the shooting deaths of three Sinhalese policemen in the majority Tamil city, Sinhalese security forces went on a brutal rampage and burned down the library.
More than 95, books were destroyed. As soon as it was published, Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses was under attack by people who considered it anti-Islamic. The first British burning was at a protest in Bolton. It attracted little coverage but then a burning in Bradford got the world's attention. More burnings would follow in the U. Perfect manscaping tips for millennial men. When Shruti Haasan openly admitted to undergoing plastic surgery.
How to care for your baby's skin the right way. The perfect beauty product for oily skin. See all results matching 'mub'. News » Lifestyle » Popular books that were burned by Nazis. Count: We have sent you a verification email. To verify, just follow the link in the message. Now Reading: Popular books that were burned by Nazis. Share fbshare twshare pinshare Comments 0.
The Nazis, as we all know, are famous for acting out tremendously feeding their xenophobia, killing millions. Apart from genocide, the Hitler-led group also propagated ignorance, dissed scientific progress, sexual knowledge, and anything that spoke of the horrors of war. But since they could not stop liberals and intellectuals from around the world from writing, they took to one measure -- burning books.
Whether it's censorship, media blackouts, burning down libraries, or books -- people have attempted to control knowledge and culture since forever. In the s, the German Student Union conducted a zealous campaign to burn books ceremonially, and the Nazi book burnings became a thing since. The books that received the Nazi target were taken as politically unsound, deemed "un-German" for being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to Nazism.
The very first books burned were those of Karl Marx and Karl Kautsky. May 10, , Germany witnessed one of the most famous and heinous instances of book burning. The German student's union, in support of the Nazi ideology, burned over 25, books that they called "un-German". They believed that fire facilitated a sort of cultural cleansing of Germany.
In fact, these book burnings proved to be an ominous sign of monstrous atrocities yet to come. The rest is history. Following are few of the most popular and important literary works that the Nazis burned with tremendous scorn and despise. Image: Smithsonian readmore. Set against the backdrop of World War I, the book is a first-person account of a love affair between an American expatriate Frederic Henry and an English nurse, Catherine Barkley.
Based on Hemingway's own experiences in the Italian campaigns during the First World War, the book is considered one of the best literary works that depict war. Image: Harper Perennial readmore. Helen Keller has been an inspiring figure for a lot of reasons.
She became an author and a prominent voice in education despite her inability to see, hear or speak. Image: prosper. In the book, Remarque shows how German soldiers were physically and mentally stressed during the war, and were also detached from civilian life that haunted many of these soldiers for a long time. Needless to say, the book was not well received by the Nazi government. Image: Penguin Random House readmore. This science fiction novella popularized the concept of time travel by using a vehicle that allows one to travel forwards or backwards in time, purposely and selectively.
One of Kafka's best-known works, 'The Metamorphosis' is a short novel that follows salesman Gregor Samsa. Samsa is astonished to wake-up one morning to find himself transformed into a huge insect and thereby struggling to adjust to this new condition. From prayer candles to the Olympic Torch to memorial flames, fire carries with it a profound meaning to this day. Yet despite its practical applications and life-giving properties, a multitude of disasters throughout history, from the Great Fire of Rome to the bombings of World War II, have been caused by the use of fire.
For example, in , four African-American girls died when their church was burned in Birmingham. And several of the worst forest fires in recent history, causing considerable damage to the environment and property, as well as loss of lives, were caused by arson. The burning of books represents a wanton desecration of knowledge and constitutes the worst form of censorship. Another historic use of fire as a political instrument is the act of self-immolation. The image of his suicide garnered worldwide attention and triggered a crisis in Vietnam.
On January 4, , Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, distraught over harassment by government officials, burned himself alive. This act is widely regarded as an impetus for the subsequent Tunisian Revolution and the ensuing Arab Spring movement in general. These culprits may be loosely divided into the following categories:.
Some book burnings are simply malicious acts of arson. Examples of this include the pillaging of medieval monasteries by the Vikings, or vindictive French revolutionaries setting fires to opulent private libraries. As long as there have been materials deemed lewd or blasphemous, there have been attempts to ban them. Those burning books as an act of censorship on ideological grounds often display religious intolerance, such as that exhibited during the Spanish Inquisition or the reign of the Taliban.
Tyrants throughout history—from Imperial China to Stalin to the Khmer Rouge to Castro—have attempted to preemptively quell sedition by eliminating subversive texts from the population. Such books have even proved fatal to their authors. The nationalism behind the Nazi book burnings is the most famous example of this.
Have you heard of Salman Rushdie? How about Hanif Kureishi? Both are acclaimed British authors, however, Rushdie is much more of a household name thanks to the death sentence he received. This often has a boomerang effect on any attempts to quell their influence. Fame and success followed. The Sermon of Saint Paul at Ephesus If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics works on religion and philosophy let us ask this question, does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?
Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact or existence? Commit it then to the flames, for it can be nothing but sophistry and illusion. Ugly hell, gape not! A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. The power that orders the burning of books admits that it governs not by reason and logic but by violence and mood.
Prepare the hecatomb you owe to truth, seize the torch, set up the state, and consign the rubbish of your philosophical libraries to the flames.
Even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence […] these tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not.
For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal. Castro can destroy everything, except for books. He may censor, ban or even burn them, but the ideas contained in books can never be destroyed. We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought. We have our fingers in the dike.
The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end […] And thus you do well in this midnight hour to commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past. This is a strong, great and symbolic deed — a deed which should document the following for the world to know — Here the intellectual foundation of the November Republic is sinking to the ground, but from this wreckage the phoenix of a new spirit will triumphantly rise. Goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Anyone who dares to discuss the Shi Jing or the Classic of History shall be publicly executed. Anyone who uses history to criticize the present shall have his family executed. Any official who sees the violations but fails to report them is equally guilty. Anyone who has failed to burn the books after thirty days of this announcement shall be subjected to tattooing and be sent to build the Great Wall.
The fire with which you threaten sacred letters will burn you in an act of justice! After the event, an outpouring of donations was made to the local public library, which used the funds to purchase additional copies. On the contrary, the repressions of genius increase its prestige. Burn all these accursed books—for he has a great number—that richly deserve to be burned like heretics. Books are sacred to free men for very good reasons. Wars have been fought against nations which hate books and burn them.
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