It is so easy to think of history’s despots and dictators like villains from TV and movies. We think only of the evils to the point of dehumanization. This is a dangerous sentiment. To believe that the horrors of history and the evils society has seen have been perpetrated by monsters allows for the blending of fact and myth. It allows the evils to be displaced from reality. It softens the injustices. It turns lives and sufferings into ideas alone.
It is imperative that we, as a society, remember that the hate, the violence, the suffering, and the destruction were caused by men. Real people with complexities. Not an imagined horror that lurks in lessons of the past. We must think of these people as exactly that…people. To lose sight of this seemingly obvious truth is to open the door for more atrocities. When people who have caused genocide, suffering, hate, violence, and fear are no longer thought of as people, we allow ourselves to let our guards down. We allow dictators and atrocities to creep back into the frame. We must not allow this.
When people who have caused genocide, suffering, hate, violence, and fear are no longer thought of as people, we allow ourselves to let our guards down. We allow dictators and atrocities to creep back into the frame. We must not allow this.
We must remember the sound of Hitler’s laughter. We must remember that Stalin loved his daughter. We must remember that the members of the KKK like baseball too.
Shown in this picture collection are people who did truly despicable, horrendous things. Shown here are tyrants, racists, murderers, dictators, and war criminals smiling. Remember that they are people. Remember what people are capable of.
