Empathy and Scholars of Modern Europe

Today, I had class on Fascism and Nazism with the esteemed Professor Rabinbach. In one of our early classes, he chastised (nicely) a fellow student's impulse to kill a bug. He also talked about a colleague of his, another famous historian, who called for "the final solution to the squirrel question" after getting a squirrel infestation in his office; "we must wipe out their eggs!" Today, as an evil cockroach swooped in to terrorize our class, Professor Rabinbach chased it around with a napkin, in order to spare its puny little life and get it out of the room. Actually, he let it run around for a while before it became clear that the rest of us were more concerned with tracing its movements than focusing on discussion. I guess if you spend all your time studying killers, you think twice before squishing the life out of something because the idea of it is inconvenient. I'm impressed.