The nazi Germany – consistently with its racist ideology – pursued a totally different type of war in the East than in the West. According to the author, this difference was not reflected in the western european image of the war, which attempted to create a collective, national experience of the sufferings that in reality was the share of only some segments of the society, most importantly of Jewish citizens. In this way, common national remembrance is necessarily illusory: the fragmented and disrupted experience of World War II can only leave behind a fragmented and disrupted remembrance in Western Europe.

Anthony Beevor: Berlin: The Downfall, 1945. Penguin Books, London, 2003.

Farkas Miklós: A huszadik század, ahogy megéltem. Bíbor Kiadó, Miskolc, 2004.

The most important achievement of Chávez is the starting of democratization that will integrate the poor majority of the population into the political life of the country. The current, grand-scale programs for the social and political integration convinced the masses that Chávez – unlikely to his predecessors – takes seriously his promises to the people – that's why he can count on the stable support of the majority of the society. If the revolution of Chávez is successful, Venezuela can be a model for the whole of Latin America.

In Venezuela, instead of a frontal attack against the old administrational and bureaucratic machinery, parallel structures were created to perform the tasks that the traditional apparatus was unfit to solve. These new, parallel structures mainly organized from below manage the social, health-care and educational programs of the Chávez-government that received much international attention. The resources and authorities of these parallels are, however, limited that delays the solution of many urgent problems and hinders the progress toward a direct democracy.