Laurence Rees on the perpetrators of the Holocaust: “What they told us was, at the time, they felt it was the right thing to do”
Rob Attar speaks to historian Laurence Rees about his book The Holocaust , which features his interviews with Nazis who committed atrocities, as well as Jewish survivors. He asks: how, even after the Holocaust was over, did some of those involved feel they could justify it morally? Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email to a frie Q: How come it was Germany that instigated the Holocaust? A : That’s a huge question. What’s important to remember is that if you looked, for example, at what was happening in Russia prior to the First World War, there were far more instances of violent attacks on Jews than there ever were in Germany. So if you were around in the early years of the 20th century and had been asked to predict where something like this would happen, it’s very unlikely you would have said Germany. Why, then, did it happen there? I think a number of things came together. The most important was the loss in the First World War, which crea...