What can we say about the Holocaust, and can we in any way talk of it in the same breath as the routine slaughter of billions of animals on today's factory farms?

In a thoughtful and thought-provoking contribution to the study of animals and the Holocaust, The Holocaust and the Henmaid's Tale, Karen Davis makes the case that significant parallels can, and must, be drawn between the Holocaust and the institutionalized abuse of billions of animals in factory farms. Carefully setting forth the conditions that must be met when one instance of oppression is used metaphorically to illuminate another, Davis demonstrates the value of such comparisons in exploring the invisibility of the oppressed, historical and hidden suffering, the idea that some groups were "made" to serve others through suffering and sacrificial death, and other concepts that reveal powerful connections between animal and human experience, as well as human traditions and tendencies of which we all should be aware.

In Eternal Treblinka, scholar Charles Patterson shows the links between the Chicago meat-packing industry, the assembly lines of Henry Ford, and Hitler's embrace of mechanized slaughter and eugenics perfected on animals: a deadly combination that led to the killing of over six million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and communists. Thoughtfully showing the ideology of purity and dehumanization that led to the Holocaust, Patterson reveals how the fascist mentality exists even today in the destruction of life unworthy of life in the factory farms of today.

In a related book, He Walked Through Walls, Myriam Miedzian describes the extraordinary life of her father as he managed to shepherd his immediately family to safety during World War II, and before that, himself survived numerous moments where he could have lost his life.

All in all, these three titles provide much food for thought about how cruel the twentieth-century was to both human beings and animals.