Gary W. Toyn

History isn’t always rewritten. Sometimes it’s just reduced, altered or subtly modified. Today is Yom HaShoah . Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day. Around the world, communities pause to remember six million Jewish lives extinguished by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. Candles are lit. Names are read aloud. Survivors, or the memory of survivors, are honored. But this year, on this day, I find myself thinking not only about what we remember, but about wheth

What happens when readers encounter history they were never taught—and can’t look away from? An exploration of memory, silence, and what painful history asks of us once we know it . Many important stories from World War II never made it into our textbooks. One account is of the Ponary Massacre in the Baltic country of Lithuania. Here, over 100,000 people— 72,000 of them Jews—were murdered in what has come to be known as the Holocaust by Bullets. But what makes the Baltic Holo

Orange spray-painted swastika on a Utah bike trail, documented to report to city authorities I was enjoying a gorgeous autumn afternoon bike ride on a paved trail near Layton, Utah. The air was clear, the mountains stood sharp and tall, dusted in snow. For a couple of hours, I couldn't imagine a better escape from the world. Then I rolled up to this: a large, bright orange swastika spray-painted across the middle of the trail. It stopped me in my tracks. I stood there staring

From historical atrocity to modern-day antisemitism, the terrifying parallels between 1941 and 2025 For the last three years, I’ve been researching and writing my next historical novel that focuses on the Holocaust’s earliest, yet most overlooked events. Unlike those who live in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, most of the English-speaking world know next to nothing about it, and are unaware of its significance. I'm talking about the " Holocaust by bullets , " where where