Overseeing an operation of this nature is not as easy as it might seem. It is a complex industrial process with all the flaws inherent in such systems: a poorly-educated workforce prone to absenteeism, power failures, stock shortages, disparities between supply and demand at the Kremas which disrupt schedules and break the working rhythm, creating bottlenecks and resulting in workers unable to work. Then there is the necessary micromanagement – as we call it these days because it sounds more complex than management – with all that this entails: unfeasible performance targets imposed like religious tenets, inter-departmental rivalry, the cliques, the clashes of interests, the scrabbling for seniority, the blunders. The extermination camps competed fiercely for everything: the best equipment, the biggest budgets, the top-flight experts; they vied with each other in their savoir-faire, their passion, their inventiveness, each trying to please the Führer, each trembling at the thought of disappointing Himmler. But it’s impossible to keep track of everything, and when one thing breaks down, there are repercussions all down the production line. In such conditions, it’s impossible to allocate blame and, by the time the problem is fixed, half a dozen more have appeared elsewhere. It might be a catastrophic event – a fire, an explosion, a virulent pandemic, an escape, an act of sabotage – with all the attendant disruption: reports to be written up, stress levels to be calmed, disciplinary action to be taken, another purging of the ranks, all of which negatively impacts on the Great God productivity. Experts had to be on site to do real-time problem solving. There was no place in the Machine for incompetence and amateurism – two things which, in the Third Reich, were considered to be greater than the seven deadly sins. It only takes five minutes to round up a firing squad, and a lot less to sign a transfer to the Russian front. An experienced chemical engineer needed to be on hand for the gas chambers, and a combustion expert was needed for the furnaces. Then there were the doctors, the lab assistants, the accountants and quartermasters; the operation involved much more than the gas chambers and the Kremas. There was everything else to consider: the various workshops and farms responsible for keeping the Reich supplied with everything it might need. A good-sized camp, after all, comprised 3–4,000 prisoners, turnover was high, you needed enough guards to supervise everyone, a dozen service sectors and a systems management team keeping everyone working to full capacity. Ask any CEO, he’ll tell you, running a town or a company of that size is no easy task. Murder on this scale is not something that can be achieved by a random serial killer. And coordinating twenty-five extermination camps spread over several countries is a colossal undertaking, one that would cripple many a government today. The logistics of the railway system alone give some idea of the countless tasks which have to be timed to the split-second. A railway system is not a toy. Before they could be gassed, these millions of people had to be tracked down, identified, inventoried, captured, grouped, transported and shipped out according to various, sometimes contradictory, criteria, then re-registered, fed, clothed, examined, made to work according to the standards of the Reich, guarded, disciplined and finally destroyed, and all of this had to be done according to a strict timetable and in complete SECRECY. Let us not forget: secrecy was the sine qua non of the final solution, the one thing without which it could not function. Secrecy was to the Final Solution what invisibility is to God – take away the one, make visible the other and the whole system collapses. I read somewhere that at its height, Auschwitz alone cremated more than 15,000 people a day. They must have been working flat out. Papa worked in Auschwitz for a while, it must have been tough work, but he’d already spent time at most of the camps in Germany and Poland so his experience would have stood him in good stead.