The Friday Fifty-Six: Contemplations on Hate

On an April morning, when the first snowmelt brought grassy scents from the mountains, the Luftwaffe sent wave after wave of Stuka dive-bombers to raid Belgrade. Armies from four hostile nations poured across the border. It took less than two weeks for the Yugoslav army to surrender. Even before that, Germany had declared Sarajevo part of a new state. “This is now the Ustashe and Independent State of Croatia,” the Nazi-appointed leader had declared. “It must be cleansed of Serbs and Jews. There is no room for any of them here. Not a stone upon stone will remain of what once belonged to them.”

People of the Book is a historical fiction novel by Geraldine Brooks that concerns itself with an imagined history of the the Sarajevo Haggadah, a well-known and very prized illuminated Continue reading “The Friday Fifty-Six: Contemplations on Hate”

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