Yet the difference between his thinking and theirs was arguably only a matter of degree.
The truth is that the Holocaust represents history's largest experiment in raw eugenics and the greatest demonstration of its diabolical power.
In a truly just world, the post-war uncovering of the death camps should have spelt the end of eugenics as a philosophy. Sadly, it still crops up from time to time, albeit usually in milder form – for example, among those who advocate selective abortions based on gender or genetic defect.
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For its part, ethnic cleansing – such a polite name for such a wicked practice – has gone on in other places since WW2, of course. Indeed, it has shown its hand in one form or another throughout history.
In the Soviet era, the Czech government expelled 25,000 to 30,000 Hungarians by the end of 1945. The fighting in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s saw the displacement and killing of thousands, particularly though not exclusively by Serb forces.
Since 2003, Sudan has allegedly carried out a campaign against several black ethnic groups in Darfur. Militia units and police forces have killed an estimated 450,000 people and expelled around two million.
These and other recent examples prove that ethnic cleansing is far from on its last legs. In all of this, however, the Holocaust stands out as its most stark and brutal example.
People of my generation and the one after mine can relate to the Holocaust only as a part of history – despite the fact that many of us were born in the near aftermath of WW2.
For my children's generation, the link may seem even more tenuous and its lessons even less clear.
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These "digital native" Millennials, are the world's first globalised cohort. They may find it hard to imagine the very fact of a world war.
That men could take up arms on such a scale, without having it end in total mutual destruction, may seem unthinkable to them.
What's more, it may seem totally unimaginable to them that civilised human beings would let a conflict situation degenerate to the point of such brutality.
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