I am aware that writing anything on such a sensitive topic is a risky thing to do. I do realise I could face the claim that I am “politicising the Holocaust”. I make no apology for that. I personally do not see how we can understand such an event without politicising it if we are to look to the future. I had no desire to politicise International Holocaust Memorial Day which is why I did not post this until after Monday 20^th January. I write this as a way of getting my own thoughts down in print. I do not claim to be an expert; I am no Holocaust scholar, and I will be the first to say that I need to read more. But I write this from a sense of hope rather than despair.

The holocaust of the past.

As we reflect back upon Holocaust Memorial Day it is worthwhile taking a step back, because in the face of the almost unbelievable, utter horror perpetrated against human beings, one thing stands out for me. It was perpetrated by human being against human beings as one of the worst atrocities our species has perpetrated against itself, though there are quite a few to choose from, though these are often referred to as “genocides”. The African holocaust lasted for 400 years, and it is estimated that about 2 million died on the Atlantic voyage; the Indigenous American holocaust reduced the native population from about 12 million to 250,000. Just two of a large number of intentional destructions of a people. The Holocaust perpetrated in Germany in the 1940s showed these to be just a precursor to our capacity for evil.

Yet in 2016, a study of 10,000 students in English secondary schools showed that they had only superficial knowledge about the Nazi Holocaust and held significant misconceptions even when they had learned about it at school and one-third greatly underestimated the number of Jewish people and others who were murdered. The holocaust of the past.

(For more detail, see: https://theconversation.com/most-uk-adults-dont-know-key-details-of-the-holocaust-how-it-has-been-taught-in-schools-may-explain-why-171702)

The holocaust of the present

Frighteningly in 2025 we are seeing the return of authoritarian far-right racist and neo-fascist political parties gaining ground in elections across the world, not least in the United States. Worse still on International Holocaust Memorial Day we saw world leaders queuing up to express their horror; while offering support to a state perpetrating another genocide of an indigenous population in Palestine where some 50,000 civilians have been murdered. That this previous sentence will be jumped upon by apologists as “disgraceful” illustrates how far the normalisation of genocide has already become. The far-right President of the USA offers “clearing out” the rest of the population as a next step. How can this be? Over 77 million Americans voted for trump – hardly a small band of crazy fanatics. (Maybe in the words of Meatloaf “two out of three ain’t bad”.)

Just who is responsible for such acts of bestiality as were witnessed in the camps, and in other genocides across the world and throughout history? The short answer is … we are. We witness the holocaust of the present slowly unfolding as first hundreds, then eventually millions get caught up in the narrative of division, and hatred, As Michel Foucault said in “The Order of Discourse”:

Discourse is not simply that which translates struggles or systems of domination, but is the thing for which and by which there is struggle, discourse is the power which is to be seized.

Those who own the power, own the discourse.

So, I want to offer a slightly different gaze on the Holocaust – the perpetrators. Us. All of us. But I start with one well-known figure – Adolph Eichman.

Otto Adolf Eichmann was a German-Austrian official of the Nazi Party, an officer of the SS, and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. He participated in the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the implementation of the genocidal Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned. Following this, he was tasked by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics involved in the mass deportation of millions of Jews to Nazi ghettos and Nazi extermination camps across German-occupied Europe. He was captured and detained by the Allies in 1945, but escaped and eventually settled in Argentina. In May 1960, he was tracked down and apprehended by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, and put on trial before the Supreme Court of Israel. The highly publicised Eichmann trial resulted in his conviction in Jerusalem, following which he was executed by hanging in 1962. (Wikipedia)

This was put together in a poem by the late Leonard Cohen

“All There Is To Know About Adolph Eichmann” by Leonard Cohen

• EYES:…………………………………….Medium
• HAIR:…………………………………….Medium
• WEIGHT:……………………………….Medium
• HEIGHT:…………………………….….Medium
• DISTINGUISHING FEATURES……None
• NUMBER OF FINGERS:…………….….Ten
• NUMBER OF TOES………………….…..Ten
• INTELLIGENCE……………………..Medium
• What did you expect?
• Talons?
• Oversize incisors?
• Green saliva?
• Madness?

Yet Cohen is not giving a view that is so surprising.

During his imprisonment before his trial, the Israeli government sent six psychologists to examine Eichmann. Their conclusion? He was utterly normal. No trace of mental illness. No personality disorder. In fact, one doctor remarked that Eichmann was actually more “normal” in his habits and speech than the average person. Leonard Cohen was urging us to see Eichmann — not as good, but as not monstrous. Eichmann, despite his evil, was not a visible ghoul, not something that was dredged up out of a horror film. That was what made Eichmann so frightening, and so dangerous — how utterly normal he was.

Jeffrey Salkin August 30, 2018

https://religionnews.com/2018/08/30/operation-finale-eichmann/

So, maybe many of those responsible for making the Holocaust happen were not all crazed fanatics – though many indeed were. What of the thousands who made the Holocaust happen across Europe? Those who threw stones, burned books, built the camps, made the gas, rounded up, burned the bodies, stole the wedding rings, cut the hair … They were “utterly normal” adopting the words of Salkin.

Yet often the Holocaust is often referred to as “the Nazi Holocaust” almost as if it was perpetrated by some right-wing bunch of fanatics. The reality is, of course, very different. It was far from some side-line operation. To use the language of today, it was a major national infrastructure project. It had to be planned, buildings constructed, services installed, railway lines laid down, railway carriages and engines provided, drivers recruited. In addition, the means of death were established, chemicals designed, provided, packed, delivered.

I am going to quote extensively here from Ole Skovsmose’s recent book “Critical Philosophy of Mathematics” (Skovsmose, 2024), which I read recently because it is a book which recognises and brings our attention to the way that over the centuries mathematics has contributed not only to massive human progress, but also to much perversity and degradation. Those of us who embrace mathematics must also recognise the ways in which it facilitates domination, exploitation, and destruction. Mathematicians may have “won the war” but it has its darker side, though this is a discussion for elsewhere.

Skovsmose opens his book with a chapter on The Holocaust which puts it better than I think I could.

The execution of the “final solution” was not some military task undertaken by a small band of conscripts. It was a huge task, necessitating technological competence, scientific insight, industrial productivity, planned management approaches, and bureaucratic efficiency. The construction of the gas chambers was a demanding engineering challenge. The efficient production and distribution of gas was an industrial achievement. The organisation of an efficient transportation of people to the extermination camps was an overwhelming organisational task, and the whole modern bureaucracy was brought into operation. (Skovsmose, 2024, p. 10)

So, if this was not a “task undertaken by a small band of conscripts”, how did it get implemented? Skovsmose tells us again,

The design and construction of the gas chambers and of the ovens for burning the bodies were carefully elaborated engineering enterprises. The construction of the gas chambers in Auschwitz could draw on experiences of gas chambers already constructed, but improvements were found necessary. The “productivity” needed to be increased tremendously in order to meet the demands set by the “final solution”. The engineering company Topf & Söhne from Erfurt became engaged in the construction of the ovens. The company had huge experience of constructing ovens for burning municipal waste. From the early 1900’s, cremation became an accepted alternative to burial, and Topf & Söhne constructed crematoria for local authorities. It had become one of world’s largest companies for the construction of crematoria with exportation to more than 50 countries. (Skovsmose, 2024, p. 8)

These camps weren’t just built over-night by a troop of eager young Nazis singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me”. Wikipedia tells us more about J. A. Topf & Sons:

At its peak Topf & Söhne was the largest company of its type in the world. It sold its products globally, as far afield as Russia, Asia, North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand. In the 1940s, less than 2% of its total business came from its concentration camp contracts. In addition to Auschwitz and Auschwitz II–Birkenau, Topf & Söhne built crematorium ovens for Buchenwald, Dachau, Mauthausen-Gusen, Mogilev ghetto, and the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. Out of the five ovens at Dachau concentration camp, four were made by H. Kori and one by Topf & Söhne. In all, Topf built 25 crematorium ovens which had a total of 76 incineration chambers for concentration camps. H. Kori built 42 single-chamber ovens at various camps. (Wikipedia)

I would advise you to look up “Topf & Söhne” on Wikipedia; it is a frightening read. The company took its work seriously it seems and in 1943 undertook a test sample of 1,492 Jews from the Kraków Ghetto being killed in the gas chambers at Auschwitz II and then cremated. They employed forced labour in their factory, as did many other German firms in the Nazi period.

However, of course Topf and Sons were not the only company involved in making the Holocaust real. The gas chambers needed to be turned into assassination chambers – step forward Tesch & Stabenow.

The administration of the gas chambers was one of the important technical issues to be dealt with at the time. The chosen gas was Zyklon-B, which was relative cheap to produce. The Zyklon-B was delivered in airtight tins containing material soaked with liquid cyanide; when the material became exposed to the air the cyanide would be spread around. In the early 1920s, the Zynklon was invented in Germany and been developed as a pest killer. It was designed to emit cyanide for a period of 24 hours. However, such a long period was not any necessary for killing people; on average 15 minutes was sufficient. So simple dropping a basket with Zynklon-B into the gas chamber, would be an inefficient waste of time. The tremendous “productivity” in Auschwitz was secured by the construction of columns from the floor of the gas chamber and up through the ceiling. Through these columns a basket with the cyanine-soaked material could be lowered down into the gas chamber from the ceiling of the crematory by SS soldiers wearing gasmasks. After the necessary time the basket could be lifted up again, and the dead bodies could be put into the ovens. The columns were made of solid wires, meaning that the gas could get disseminated into the room, while it was impossible for people in the gas chamber to interfere with the process. The Tesch & Stabenow company was main supplier of Zyklon-B to Auschwitz. (Skovsmose, 2024, p. 9)

So, who was this “Tesch & Stabenow”? Wikipedia tells us:

The corporation Tesch & Stabenow (in short Testa) was a market leader in pest control chemicals between 1924 and 1945, in Germany east of the Elbe. Testa distributed Zyklon, a pesticide consisting of inert adsorbents saturated with hydrogen cyanide, a volatile liquid extremely toxic to animals and humans. For legitimate use as a pesticide, Zyklon included a warning odorant as not everyone can smell cyanide or recognize its faint almond-like odor. The company sold Zyklon B, the variant of the original pesticide Zyklon, to the Wehrmacht and the SS in Auschwitz-Birkenau without the odorant, clearly showing that it was intended for use on humans. Two directors of Testa were convicted and executed after being accused of assisting the mass murder of Jews during the Second World War. (Wikipedia)

One would have hoped such companies would have had absolutely nothing to do with mass slaughter, but it was a way of profiting from the evil. Do we have companies that under similar economic, social and political circumstances would do the same? Why would it be otherwise? We only have to look at the way companies and individuals are falling into line in the USA.

But such companies have bosses, owners, CEOs, shareholders, Boards of Directors. What Margaret Thatcher might describe as “individual men and women” Yet all playing their parts in the whole. One US company even has an owner who not only advocates for the far-right AfD in German elections, but also offers support to the now imprisoned self-professed fascist and racist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, and to our very own far right politician the millionaire banker Nigel Farage.

They walk the streets amongst us. That is frightening.

The holocaust of the Future

The Holocaust couldn’t have happened without careful planning, preparation, persuading, recruiting, of thousands, if not tens of thousands of builders, planners, engineers, scientists, labourers, doctors, teachers, police, soldiers, and so on.

So, in the holocaust of the future, where are our builders, planners, engineers, scientists, labourers, doctors, teachers, police, soldiers?

They – we – are walking the streets. Being confronted with politicians who espouse hate and division, and let us remember this:

Of course, Germany in the 1930s was a far cry from Europe on the 2020s. Do we really believe “It couldn’t happen here”? Are we comfortable with “Never again”?

The leadership of the Nazi Party may have all been far-right fanatics: Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann, Reinhard Heydrich, Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, Albert Speer, … but they attained powerful positions. They didn’t come from nowhere. It didn’t start with them.

Do we really believe all fascists are just the criminally insane? Do we really believe our very own right-wing politicians, Farage, Johnson, Badenoch, Jenrick, Tice, Rees-Mogg, to name just a few, would line up to say “Not in our name. They shall not pass.” Not at all. They will be lining up saying “This way …”.

Yes, you may think I am over-reacting here. No doubt this was said to those warning against Hitler and his henchmen in the 1930s. Do you really believe Farage is cut from different cloth? Is Rees-Mogg really that different from Joseph Goebbels? Jenrick so different from Heinrich Himmler? Are they really just English eccentrics. They walk amongst us.

I close with some quotes from various organisations placed on the website of The Claims Conference (https://itstartedwithwords.org/statements/). They all sound rather chillingly familiar.

When dealing with atrocity and genocide, our societies tend to concentrate on the actual outbursts and their consequences. We have to acknowledge, however, that the road to atrocity and genocide is often a slow trajectory of small legal measures, the denial of human rights and outright dehumanisation. This is relevant, not only when analysing historical events, but perhaps even more so when judging developments in our own contemporary societies.

(Prof. dr. Emile Schrijver, General Director, Jewish Cultural Quarter)

It began with words; it begins with people: people who charge the words with their hatred and chase them through the world of modern means of communication to those who also hate and are ready to strike: What was written on the t-shirt of a man who stormed towards the Capitol in Washington with an angry mob of rioters: Camp Auschwitz!

International Auschwitz Committee

The Holocaust did indeed not start with the gas chambers or the crematoria. That is where it ended, for so many… It started with words printed in the press, accusing and targeting those already marginalized and rendered vulnerable by insidious regulations, laws and propaganda.

Zanet Battinou, Archaeologist, Director of the Jewish Museum of Greece

The Holocaust did not begin with killing. No genocide ever does. The roots of violence can be found in the words used to marginalize, dehumanize, isolate and discriminate. Words of hatred left unchecked can embolden, just as acts of violence that go unsanctioned develop an expectation of impunity. Words can normalize injustice.

The United Nations

The Holocaust did indeed not start with the gas chambers or the crematoria. That is where it ended, for so many… It started with words printed in the press, accusing and targeting those already marginalized and rendered vulnerable by insidious regulations, laws and propaganda.

Zanet Battinou, Archaeologist, Director of the Jewish Museum of Greece

“Never again!”, “They shall nor pass!”, require constant vigilance. This post began out of anger growing form my outrage against Trump-Farage-Netanyahu-Musk-Badenoch … But more so at those who give them a voice, those who allow them the power to own the discourse. It grew in the writing as is the way with these things. I guess I am still an angry young man.