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One commentator wrote: 'Perhaps an accurate memorial inscription would warn against the sin of hatred inflamed by German Nazism and Soviet Communism and fanned by selfish human short-sightedness.' Is this a fair comment? What historical evidence would be needed to obtain a complete picture of what happened in July 1941? Could such evidence ever exist? What is the difference between an objective account of more-or-less verifiable 'facts', and eye-witness accounts? Should a fair historical record draw evidence from one or both of these sources, and how?
History is seldom as simple as we try to make it. Human beings are complex, so how can their history be anything else? But we can look at history, and especially cases like this one, to study the seeds of conflict and how they grow, and learn how to protect future society from their terrible fruit.
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