How was it possible? How could a nation like Germany, a civilization that had cultivated some of the finest minds and talents, descend almost overnight into the most abysmal barbarism that produced the Holocaust?
To face the Holocaust, ultimately, is to confront oneself. Deep within this reflection may lie a monstrosity, dormant but easily roused by the first shrill bugle call.
That bugle call – shrill but seductive – can rouse not only mindless mobs but also the “intelligentsia” – “civilized” men of learning and culture.
Does “civilization” produce not only culture, art and knowledge but, equally, deadly power and the imagination and arrogance to use it?