The twentieth century was among the bloodiest in the history of humanity. Untold millions were slaughtered. How people are enrolled in the service of evil is a question that continues to bedevil. In this trenchant book, Abram de Swaan offers a taxonomy of mass violence that focuses on the rank-and-file perpetrators, examining how murderous regimes recruit them and create what De Swaan calls the "killing compartments” that make possible the worst abominations without apparent moral misgiving, without a sense of personal responsibility, and, above all, without pity. De Swaan wonders where extreme violence comes from and where it goes—seemingly without a trace—when the wild and barbaric gore is over. And what about the perpetrators themselves? Are they merely and only the product of external circumstance? Or is there something in their makeup that disposes them to become mass murderers? Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, political science, history, and psychology, De Swaan sheds new light on an urgent and intractable pathology that continues to poison peoples all over the world.

Mercy is an important concept in the Christian moral tradition. It is one of the most prominent divine attributes, and is embodied in Jesus Christ. This volume investigates the concept of mercy from a Protestant point of view with respect to its consequences for an increasingly non-Christian society. Starting from its biblical origins, a group of international authors explicates the intrinsically messianic logic of divine mercy for its potential in current theological ethics, practical ecclesiology, systematic and public theology.

During the Second World War, approximately 25,000 Dutchmen served within the ranks of the military branch of the German SS: the Waffen-SS. They volunteered to fight to secure the victory of Nazi Germany. These Dutch volunteers fought mainly on the Eastern Front, and to a lesser extent, within their own national borders. After the war, the Allied victors regarded them as part of a criminal organization and jointly responsible for the atrocious transgressions of the Nazi regime. In the Netherlands, these men were reviled, branded as traitors and became pariahs in their own country. Those who had devoted themselves to the Nazi regime caused so much grief to the Netherlands that they had to be held accountable. Despite their military achievements, their reputation was damaged forever. The Netherlands supplied the largest contingent of SS soldiers from the occupied North-western European territories. Who were these people? What led them to enlist, and what were the consequences of their choice? An important part of this study involves the autobiographical texts of nineteen Dutch volunteers in the Waffen-SS. These ego-documents recount their own immediate experiences and are mainly fragments from diaries, but there are also letters, individual notes, and memoirs. The ego-documents are placed within the larger historical context to provide an answer to the question of whether these men were only ideologically motivated and unconditional Nazi sympathizers, and for this, their criminal records are also researched. Among other topics, the book discusses their choice to enlist, their experiences at the front, and their involvement in genocide, providing a new perspective on the Eastern Front.

This book describes my experiences being subjected to and living with abuse during my childhood and early adult years in the Lubavitch-Chabad community, in Brooklyn, New York. I discuss the effects this physical, emotional and psychological abuse had on my development and life, which resulted in my leaving this community and lifestyle. When I grew up in this community, the topic of abuse was either denied, or spoken about in whispers. Generally, even if abuse of a child was known, it was not reported to law enforcement, and the child was not protected from further abuse. The topic of reporting such crimes to the law enforcement authorities, for eventual criminal prosecution, is referred to as 'mosur' a term of revilement. Such a person, regardless of the crime(s) committed, is protected by the Jewish community and the victim is forced to face the abuse by himself/herself, without the benefit of communal embrace for resolution. Moreover, Jewish law excoriates a 'mosur' / informer, by exclusion from normative communal membership. These exclusions are embodied in codes of Jewish law which formalizes the process by vilifying the informer. The victim thereby faces a double attack. The first is by the predator, and the second by the code of silence forced upon the victim. The primary focus of this book regards the physical attack I endured at the hands of my mother. She was angered by my non-diligence in religious study motivating her to try to break my arm. I was eight years old at the time. And she was following the actions of another mother who broke the arm of her son for the same perverse reason. this attack was a life changing event. It forced to identify my mother, and others, as persons who represented a great danger to me, necessitating measures that resulted in distance and eventual examination of the fundamentals of this religious life and identity. I describe the other Jewish family that similarly abused a child. Similar to my own circumstance, no investigation or prosecution was ever conducted. I remain convinced other families from these ultra-Orthodox (Charedi) Jewish communities experienced similar, or worse, violence, but such violence was muted and not reported. My father was aware of the attack but did not intervene. I discuss the details of the abuse, as well as its aftermath, and the larger concatenates these events caused in my life. I conclude my narrative by stating that these acts, and especially community refusal to acknowledge and respond, is shameful and indefensible. A few persons reviewed this material prior to publication. While I remain grateful for their comments and recommendations, the publication reflects my own insights and I remain responsible for any errors or oversights.