On Holocaust Remembrance Day we tend to focus on the six million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis. We read from Night, sing that song by Hannah Szenes, and light six Memorial candles for the nearly two thirds of Europe’s Jewish population who were systematically wiped out by the Nazis. It’s important to remember that Jews bore the brunt of the Nazis wrath, but also that they were far from the only group singled out.
Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi: the retired managing editor of Ebony magazine was born in Germany and narrowly escaped being sent to a concentration camp with his mother
Homosexuals, Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Romani Gypsies, blacks, and all kinds of political dissidents were also sent to concentration camps and murdered in large numbers. In total, an estimated 5 million non-Jews were killed by the Nazis. Civilian deaths in Europe add many more millions to that number.

A lot of Jewish discourse about the Holocaust rightly focuses on the great Jewish suffering and loss. The other groups who were persecuted, put in camps and executed are generally glossed over, an after-thought to our own grief. It’s natural that we should focus on the community that is closest to us, and that we would fixate on our own families and the stories of those we are familiar with. But the five million others who died deserve more than lip service, more than a footnote.

Related: Third Generation Descendants of Holocaust Survivors and the Future of Remembering

When gypsy eyes are smiling: an Irishman who writes about RomaIt would appear that "writing what you know" is for suckers. I've always thought it was terrible advice, especially if the person doing the writing only knows about college (excuse the self-call). Not only will you have less fun than you might have writing about, say, the Boer War, or circumnavigating the globe on an inner-tube raft, or Tommyknockers, but you'll also run the more financially significant risk of boring the hell out of your readers. So two authors are to be commended on their recent success with going far afield of what they know. (Note: I haven't read either of them. I accept no resposibility if they bore the hell out of you.)

The first of these literary adventurers is Colum McCann, author of the new novel Zoli. The book takes as its subject the plight of the Slovakian Roma during World War II and in its aftermath. It's received favorable reviews so far, and if you live in Manhattan and like books, you can attend his reading on February 12 at Hunter College, where McCann is a professor of creative writing.

Tuesday, February 13th at 7:30PM

Faculty Dining Room (8th floor, west building)

Hunter College

68th Street & Lexington Avenue

Colum McCann is the author of two collections of short stories and three novels, including This Side of Brightness and Dancer, both of which were international best-sellers. His most recent novel, Zoli, came out this year. His fiction has been published in 26 languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ and other places. In 2003 Colum was named Esquire magazine's "Writer of the Year." Other awards and honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Rooney Prize, the Irish Independent Hughes and Hughes Novel of the Year 2003, and the 2002 Ireland Fund of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award. He was recently inducted into the Hennessy Hall of Fame. His short film "Everything in this Country Must," was nominated for an Oscar in 2005. Colum teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Hunter College.

To reserve seats, please call 212.772.4007

or email the Special Events Office at spevents@hunter.cuny.edu

The other big winner is Stef Penney, the unknown British writer who took the first Costa Book of the Year Award (formerly the Whitbread Award). That's £30,000, earned the old-fashioned way: research.

Stef Penney’s portrait of a small Canadian settlement in deep midwinter was so authentic that when her winning novel, The Tenderness of Wolves, was published in north America, Canadians were convinced that she had spent weeks researching the book there.

In fact, the author who lives in east London, did all her research at the British Library.

Acute agoraphobia meant that she could not travel by aeroplane or train for 15 years.

The Tenderness of Wolves is a murder mystery that takes place in 1967 on Dove River, a lonely snowbound town on the Hudson Bay.