In January 1942, a short conference of high ranking Nazis was held over lunch at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee, chaired by Reinhold Heydrich, with Adolf Eichmann as one of the attendees. At it, the "Final Solution", i.e. the elimination of all Jews in Europe was planned. With their usual thoroughness, the Nazis kept minutes of this meeting which have survived. They reflect what Hannah Arendt called in her account of Eichmann's trial, "the banality of evil."

Two films have been made about this conference based on the minutes, one in German (with English subtitles), "The Wannsee Conference" and a second in English, "Conspiracy" with Kenneth Branagh as Heydrich and Stanley Tucci as Eichmann. They are both superb movies and I would recommend them both as preparation for visiting Auschwitz.

Those who are interested can find the minutes on the internet. They are chilling indeed.

That's Reinhard Heyrich, not Reinhold.

My fingers are stumbling today. It's "Heydrich", as I first had it.