Work his previous works of in the year in year zero a history of 1945. Most of which he wrote while he was a fellow 2012 to the envy of his fellow fellows, he displays a betrayal of the world emerging from the devastation and unspeakable horrors of world war ii in europe and asia. Skeptical about the idea that we can learn much from history, he whatd to know, he writes, those who lived through the war and its end went through, in the long dark shadow of what came before. The wall street journal called year zero remarkable in its combination of magnificence and modesty. The Financial Times described it as elegant, humane and luminous. Amos martin amis has published 25 books, including many collections of stories in novels. Stories and novels. One of the greatest british writers since 1945. 1945 seems to be a theme here. We are extremely fortunate to be able to listen in on a conversation between these two extraordinarily gifted writers, who are also friends. Talk for about 45 minutes they will talk for about 45 minutes, and then take questions from the audience. Books. Ey will sign when they are finished speaking, please let them get out to the table out there. Please welcome ian buruma and martin amis. [applause] this is a tremendous book. Ofs an amazing Task Organizing a great deal of because the aftermath of the war was determined by the war itself, and shaped by the years that preceded it. That preceded it. Apart from being uniquely it looksng, grotesquely weird and , some aspects of the war. It wasnt blundered into like the first world war. Man, the japanese experience could be quite different but one man brought this about. The only time hitlers ever made me smile was just before the which setf poland, the war in motion, but he was questioned by general and said i havent got any nerves about this war. Ever sinceon it, 1918. Manfact that this one the bestermany, theated country on earth, best educated country there had ever been, into this pedantic exploration of the bastille is remarkable. Weirdness of much of the aftermath is sort of inherent in the war. It is the great crux that no one can argue. It was said of the jews that they went like lambs to the slaughter. The germans went like butchers to the slaughterhouse. I think ian is especially wellequipped to write such an ambitious book. Germany,ection with england, america and japan. Ian i dont think it helps, necessarily to know germany, the humanexplain propensity for extreme violence. One reason i am happy to be on stage with you is we share a horrified fascination with what people are capable of doing why people are capable of doing terrible things. Say it caneople who be explained because the germans had an extermination nest exterminationist mentality, or the japanese were uniquely barbaric or cruel. I dont believe that for a minute. I think your question is a good one, how did one of the most highly educated and civilized countries in europe produce so much extraordinary violence because yes, it was hitlers who led it, that he could not have done it on his own but he could not have done it on his own. Hitler is a machine that deliberately exploits peoples basest instincts. Not all of this would make not all of us would make good torturers. Governmentties, the gives people license to do whatever they like with other aman beings, you will find large number and one can put cant put a particular number on this but there are a significant number of people who will do their worst. If people had lived perfectly happily together before that, and i think another trite thing people often say, for example in the balkan wars, people explain serbian violence say thesee muslims are ancient hatreds and the exploded a certain time. I dont think hatreds are necessarily ancient even though there are all kinds of myths that keep coming back and arm in italy did by politicians, an order to put people up to the violence. I dont think there is such a thing as a smoldering hatred that occasionally like a volcano bursts out. Best examples of this in my book, and 1945, is what happened in check with voc you and poland, in checklist of nokia in czechoslovakia and poland. They were given license by their theleaders, as well as by allies who did nothing to stop it. They were told, now you can do what you like to the germans, and we cant live with these people anymore, they have to be expelled, and in a way, do your worst. People did, for several months. German nationalists like to claim that what happened to the german population in poland and czechoslovakia, or what the germans in germany suffered from the soviet red army, which was also horrendous in terms of rapes and killing and torture, that somehow this is just as bad as what the germans did to others, which is not the case. Martin to put a different complexion on these. In that review in the new york times, that what ,ou didnt do in this book was the professional word is deh eroize the allies. One, hiroshima bombing. Bombing. Allied 10 Million People turfed out, ethnic germans of poland and czechoslovakia. Agreed to return to certains enslavement if not certain death, and the way we revived colonialism and also things like saying that the resistance in france was not that. But has become the myth, the truth was Something Like collaboration. Myself very much reacting against that in a visceral way. Equivalence. Oral thathould remember churchill referred to the moral wrong of the war. And the bigger they are, the faster they age. In, there was a loss a mild way to put it. Wasestroyed hitlers, that we destroyed hiler, that was the achievement. Ian a necessary achievement, of course. But i think the bleecker conclusion one could draw is that very often, heroes quickly turn into villains. From churchill, the soviet army fought like heroes. The sacrifice of the soviet soldiers were extraordinary, and they fought like lions and it was a necessary fight and without them, we would not have defeated hiler. But those same soldiers behaved like beasts. Invaded germany, they were an army of rapists. Martin there were a million births. Ian indeed. Soviets. The japanesef the occupation of countries in theheast asia, and so on, asians in those countries, local populations certainly didnt want to go back to the status quo, whereas the dutch and the hadch and the british delusions they could go back to the prewar order and take back their colonies. Now the nationalists in these had often collaborated with the japanese, quite understandably because they saw their chance to liberate themselves from their european colonial masters. After the war in europe, these were labeled as fascists and collaborators. Downers were sent to put the anticolonial nationalist. Ebellions often atrocious force against people who fought against the nazis. The propensity for atrocity and extreme violence is not a matter of character or culture. It is a matter of circumstances. The same people who can behave like heroes in certain circumstances can behave like animals in others. Thatn it is that finding if you find yourself, you find use you have someone completely at your mercy, the human thought that comes next is torture. We should make note that in why violence has declined. It is continuing to decline and of the reasons, one very important notion. It took a lot of reestablishing after the war but who had the monopoly of violence . Ive always thought that americans have kind of accepted that preset, and they want to be able to stand up with the u. S. Army if things get tyrannical in the white house. The police are what stops violence, going back a couple centuries. You may be interested to know stephen doesnt like the word empathy. Do you think this is irrevocable . The idea that you will torture someone if you get the chance. Ian no, i dont think that. I dont think high culture makes us into better human beings. This was one of George Steiners great hobby horses, how is it possible that an ss officer who could play beautifully and read poems to the next day go to work and pull out peoples anger nails . I dont think it is all that mysterious peoples fingernails . I dont think it is all that mysterious. I really do think it is a question of i think of circumstances. I suppose if you think of more recent wars, it is a real moral dilemma, because new talk about the monopoly of force because when you talk about the monopoly of force, Saddam Hussein monopolized force in his state, in an extremely brutal matter and it was a state in which torture was widespread, people were gassed. Martin he came up through the torture. Ian indeed. He monopolized it. Thanhing people fear more a brutal dictatorship, it is anarchy,y man every man for himself and chaos, which we see to some extent in on, whichiraq and so is not to say that things would have been better if we left Saddam Hussein alone, but it does it is something people should think about more, before they casually say we as americans have a duty to fight dictatorship and will use military force to do so. Martin they should have listened to what Saddam Hussein said, which was iraq was a terribly difficult country to govern. Terrible brutal dictatorial order would be preferred to violent anarchy. Violent in aki is in many cases what you had in 1945 until order violent anarchy inin many cases what you had 1945 until order was reimposed. Ideology, it was religion was like heroin and ideology was like methadone. It brings you troubling trembling down from religion. Barbarity not seen for centuries, because of ideology. Borderlines in ideology and religion are not always so clear. There is not a huge distinction between religion and ideology in maoism, because it was also a religious cult where people could be tortured to death for treading on a newspaper with maos image on it. That was religion at its worst. It is a cult. Martin it is to do with the peer group isnt it . If you think the peer group is overemphasized as a determinant fate, theeoples where itof that is established that the killing inads that went out behind poland and russia, who would go and kill everyone in the village. 38,000 dead . Kill all day, women and children and men, all day, and no one for seekingished transfer. Some penalt sent to commando in the front, they would be transferred. All you would have is jostling in the lunch queue. Not a single case of anyone being punished for requesting a transfer. Ian they didnt necessarily enjoy it. Nerves ofear on the ss members. That is why the gas chambers were employed because after a while, the it is a bit of a strain. Even if they got drunk, which they did. It was considered to be cleaner and more efficient to have gas chambers, and the people who operated the gas chambers werent often not germans either. It was often left up to the victims. Is, while we are on this cheerful subject, i have often thought that the reason warshe violence in civil to the ethnicck germans after the war ended in poland and czechoslovakia, the reason why they are so particularly brutal, and the killing almost always goes together with humiliation. You see this in india. Upon the i set cant remember now. In any case, you see it over and over in india. People would set upon their neighbors, and it wasnt enough to kill people, the way the jews were killed. It wasnt just enough to kill them. It was always preceded by hubley asian of some grotesque kind by humiliation of some grotesque kind. One of the reasons is it is not easy for one human being to murder another human being, especially if they identify with them. If they were neighbors. It makes it easier, if you reduce your victim to the status of an animal, some abject creature crawling around in the mud, and then you are killing an animal and no longer a human being, which is why you have to reduce people to that state. Tin animal is a animalization. The selffulfilling slander is remarkable to watch. If theghettos of poland, holocaust never happened, we would have noted that. Pulverized,zed, exploited and had to work for their conquerors. Goebbels wrote a report where he hesitated in the ghettos of warsaw. No selfrespect. Not even common decency. The way they treat their children, the children are starving. The imposition of what you think the cumulus recalling of indignation. It unpleasantund to visit concentration camps. Martin he fainted, nearly. If you had heard that they were machine gunning mental patients to clear bed space for people who had gone mad after killing women and children in the east, you would have thought something was not quite right in germany. In but on the other hand, 1945 after the liberation, russian troops, often teenagers rapedhospitals and people, sometimes on their deathbeds. We have to be a little careful. When you write about violence, there is a danger in the pornography of violence. We are frightened of it, and therefore fascinated by it. One always has to be a bit careful that you dont start to revel in descriptions of it, because there is a pornographic element. Guards against that, i have no clear answer to. It is a fact. As we sit here Holding Forth on it. When you come to these horribly unwelcome human experiences. Ian and it is close to sex, which is why i think there is a pornographic element. People read about violence with this fascination that is not entirely unrelated to the fascination for reading about sex. Martin it was said that many of the americans had visible erect ions. In another argument, one might note that there was a standing ovation in congress when got his sentence commuted. Thats a rockabilly song, was on top of the rockabilly charts. Americans didnt find it shocking. True. Hat is not entirely there was a horror. Ofricans are as capable doing these things as the germans are. It was an interesting case because, people often wonder about things like the rape of nanking in 1937 when the japanese took the Chinese Capital at the time and there was massive rape and killing and looting. It has often been explained as this japanese are particularly cruel and barbaric. How is it possible that an army behave like that even though in the russell japanese war in 1995, the Japanese Army was known for its discipline and how well it treated its pows and so on. Explains a little bit what happened in world war ii and afterwards, and that it was a particular situation when soldiers are in a foreign country, they dont understand you could be shot at by anybody. The distinction between guerrilla fighters and soldiers and so on almost doesnt exist. You have no idea who is going to be shooting at you. There is a great temptation to be triggerhappy and just shoot them all. I think that is i think it necessarily despite the cuckolded of failures, these things can also come out of fear. Martin and they had taken a lot of losses. Ian as had the japanese. And as we said, the dehumanization of the enemy. Two a lot of those soldiers to a lot of those soldiers from rural america, they would not have seen entirely human seemed entirely human. Book does sothis well is capture the amazing complexity of the different ramified itand how all was. We were just talking about yugoslavia. There were several wars going on at the same time, thought along political, ethnic and religious grounds. It sounds a bit like syria. Look at greece and indonesia. Ian what wars do, just as dictatorships often do in Foreign Occupation is they are deliberately manipulating resentment, divisions and so on that exist in society anyway. In france, the regime would never have come to power had it not been for the German Occupation. In greece, the antagonism between the left in the right goes back to the prewar, when they had a rightwing dictatorship and leftwing opponents were locked up in jail. The germans occupied greece. The resistance comes from the left, from the communists. The old guard becomes collaborators with the germans and that goes on after the war. Greece ended up in a very brutal civil war. In france, it was similar. Speakingm, the dutch flemish nationalists were deliberately inflamed by the German Occupation against the frenchspeaking will loons. There was no monarch in belgium to keep things together because he was tainted by trying to make a deal with the germans. What happened after the war is it is not that you topple the the brutal bring enemy to heel. In some countries, the problems went on or were made worse by the war. Having sort of a national figure, a king or queen who has the legitimacy to patch things deliberately very by talking about the heart and everyone had been antigerman and is now trying to pull together again. Necessary,ably because otherwise the country could have been torn apart. The reason you didnt have civil war in france and britain was you had stalin in the soviet union. Martin talk a little bit about a very extreme process went on. The cult of macarthur. Of japan, ian which came as a good is a great relief to the empire. The emperor preferred to have his english breakfasts. Martin talk about the process. Ian the difference between theany and japan is that other thing after world war ii, the allies often had a very hazy idea of what it produced of all whathorror, what explains the nazis did, the germans did . One of the most common theories at the time, one that churchill for a long time believed in, it was all because of prussianism, the German Military spirit had produced all of this. Later we knew better. Martin and the prussians were the colonels and officers. Ian who tried to assassinate hitlers. Tried to assassinate hitler. It was fairly easy because there had been a clear takeover in 1933 by a criminal regime that came to an end in 1945. It was not the party and hitler. In germany, you could make the case that if you get rid of the nazi elements in the government, you get rid of nazi is him, germany could be restored to a decent european country. It was also the country of mozart and all that. There was a real culprit, the nazi party, hitler, the ss. So simpleit wasnt because there was no equivalent to the nazi party. There was no holocaust, even though there was an enormous amount of killing. Deliberateo systematic attempt to exterminate an entire people. There had to be another explanation. The exultation was we decided it was a variant of prussianism. Fy germany, you could denazi and purify the best of german culture. The view was there was something so wrong about japanese culture, so feudalistic and warrior light, that the whole culture needs to be turned upside down. Kabuki plays about samurai had to be banned. Martin anything to do with feudalism. Democratize japan along american lines, they had to be reeducated in a fundamental way. There were some comical instances of this. A u. S. Army kansas, officer who was in charge of a town somewhere in japan, rural japan who thought that square dancing was the answer, because square dancing would democratize the japanese. First the case of the screen of the first screened case in movie theaters. Black americans, the need to be able to show