Eternal Treblinka by Charles Patterson (Reviewed by David Ryde, June 2002)
Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust. Charles Patterson. Lantern Books, New York.
Eternal Treblinka is dedicated to the Yiddish writer and Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-91) who once remarked that "for animals, all humans are Nazis, their world is an eternal Treblinka". Author Charles Patterson, whose previous books have included studies of anti-semitism and the civil rights movement, spotlights the terrible wrongs that humans have inflicted on non-human animals throughout history. As a young postgraduate student at Columbia University, Patterson befriended a German Jewish refugee, traumatised by living for six years under Nazi rule, and decided to find out more. Eternal Treblinka is the result of his research.
Dr Patterson unveils extensive evidence of the connection between Hitler's 'Final Solution' for the Jews and the mass slaughter of animals in the USA, and draws parallels with the fascist concepts of eugenics and forced sterilisation in the exploitation of animals. However, the book's message is one of hope, for it tells of survivors, and perpetrators, who subsequently devoted their lives to animal liberation advocacy.
Eternal Treblinka begins by putting animal suffering and human attitudes to it into perspective, continues with an account of the Master Race (humans) and German and Jewish people who care for animals, and ends with 'Holocaust Echoes'. Extensive quotes reveal attitudes equating non-whites to 'apes' or 'vermin', and shows how the dehumanisation of racial groups can lead to their mass extermination in much the same way that non-humans have become the victims of mass slaughter. Like humans, animals have a brain, awareness and feelings, and their slaughter to satisfy a craving for meat is similarly tragic, especially as animal products are not only unnecessary for human health but are largely responsible for the occurence of degenerative diseases.
Eternal Treblinka is a well-constructed book written for the intelligent reader. Its 300 pages (including 47 pages of notes and references and a 14 page index) are steeped in history and philosophy and crammed with concisely presented facts and arguments. It is a book that merits your close attention.
David Ryde, June 2002
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Author: David Ryde
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