The running of such camps is anything but easy. When I put myself in Papa’s shoes, when I consider the incredible difficulties he faced and compare them to the problems of a multinational like ours, even in an adverse economic climate, faced with criticism from newspapers, takeover bids from speculators, disloyalty from clients, edicts from civil servants and the terrorist ploys of unions, I have to laugh. The achievements of the formidable Nazi military-industrial machine are unparalleled, they are without equal.

Was the journey necessary? From a technical point of view, obviously not. I already knew what there was to know. What I wanted was to be in this place where my father had been, to talk to him across the years. Who else could tell me what I needed to know, what his career path had been, what his state of mind had been when he meted out death on such a scale? Had he resisted? Did he glory in his power? Why this loathing of the Jew, this all-consuming hatred? What did he think might come of it? When the Third Reich was crumbling, was Papa thinking that it was the end of the world or simply the end of a world? What did he feel when the extermination camps were discovered and humanity gave a howl of terror that surely echoed to the ends of the universe? Did he suddenly come to his senses? Did he become affronted? Did he say to himself that humanity had clearly understood nothing, that at the ends of the universe the end of a world is a triviality, it is in the order of things? Chaos is born of chaos and returns to chaos, it is mathematical, it is written in the heavens. Untold civilisations, vast empires, great peoples have vanished, this is not news, the old must die to make way for the new. These questions drive me insane because I know the answer: Papa did not kill himself, did not give himself up, he ran away, he lied, he forgot. He told me nothing.