Jonathan Littell, Anne Applebaum, Niall Ferguson about Holocaust and Gulag. Nightcap at YES 2019

Writer and filmmaker Jonathan Littell and Washington Post columnist and author Anne Applebaum engaged in a thought-provoking discussion about the darker periods of humanity's history, focusing on the Holocaust and the Gulag.

The conversation was moderated by Niall Ferguson, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, who began by segueing between the conference's theme of happiness and the atrocities of the 20th century, drawing attention to the fact that Ukraine itself was the location of unprecedented and unparalleled suffering.

Anne Applebaum detailed her tactic of reading a range of survivors' accounts to make her work as multi-faceted as possible.

Jonathan Littell, on the other hand, described how his experiences working abroad in humanitarian aid helped him to adhere to facts while creating a fictional narrative.

Niall Ferguson moved the discussion onto the elements of human nature that allowed tragedies like the Holocaust and the Gulag to occur, and whether such events were unique or in fact repeated throughout history.