A Nazi in the Family

I wanted to shout: “Don’t distance yourselves from this. The people who did this are like me. And like you.” And that is the hardest thing to accept and the easiest thing to hide in self-righteous indignation.

Two years ago, I went to the concentration camp at Dachau, the pivotal location of this story. In an archive room, two German historians sat opposite me and told me that my grandfather would, without question, have known something about the atrocities that were taking place and that he would have socialised with some of the worst offenders of the Holocaust. Apparently I left the building, apparently I took notes in the doorway and my wife – seeing my face – took my photograph. I have no recollection.

One car drove back to the rest place. There I stood – knowing and understanding nothing of the confusion of war – very happy with a bunch of flowers in my hands – and I could not understand what all the excitement was about. I was just proud of the bouquet of flowers I had for Mum and I had no idea whatsoever about the danger around me, around us, from enemy aircraft. How should I as a young child have understood that?

The Nazi philosophy had a particular draw for the lower middle classes, whose lives had been blighted by the economic troughs of the 1920s

He was little more than a footnote in history, but what a footnote.

How could a Nazi be anything but evil? I wanted to know more, but I didn’t want to hear it.