Here’s a recent Amazon.com “review” of Don’t Tell the Nazis: This should not be permitted in our school library. This is not a children’s book. It describes in graphic detail violence against women and children. My child brought this home and we have gone chapter by chapter writing a summary for his class, but I should have investigated the content prior to him using this book. I will be speaking to the school board and superintendent about the removal of any of this disturbed author’s works.
Within hours of the above “review” being posted, someone trolled through my Goodreads list and left a comment on my review of a piece of old Soviet propaganda published in book form titled Famine, Fraud and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard. It’s long been part of the Soviet (and now Putin) playbook to label Ukrainians as fascists and therefore killable. Before WWII, they were labeled kulaks to identify them as “enemies of the people” and a killable group. In the 1930s, using this propaganda method, the Stalinists killed millions of Ukrainians by starving them. My review of this book was simple. I gave it a single star and noted that it was hate propaganda. The troller’s comment was, “found the kulak”. Everything old is new again.
When one writes books on topics that others won’t touch, it’s a given that some people will direct hate your way. I’m not a shrinking violet, but thought the timing was interesting. Two attacks within hours of someone like me, a mere children’s writer. Multiply this by all of the other Russian information warfare out there. Smells of desperation.
