a small corner of Hell

This week I read the "Ordinary Chechen Life in Wartime" chapter of Anna Politkovskaya's 2003 book A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. In the prologue, Politkovskaya wrote:

As contemporaries of this war, we will be held responsible for it. The classic Soviet excuse of not being there and not taking part in anything personally won't work.

So I want you to know the truth. Then you'll be free of cynicism.

( Politkovskaya meant, I think, that if you know the truth, there is only one possible moral choice... )