The banality of evil

Families often have secrets - subjects that are taboo and, if raised, swiftly lead to silence. Few such secrets can be as devastating as the fact that your grandfather used to be a Nazi officer who was directly responsible for the suffering of thousands. That was the horrific discovery made by British nature author Derek Niemann - an experience with which he attempts to come to terms in his book A Nazi In The Family. It must have been an extremely difficult (if necessary) book to write - with the hardest thing to accept surely being his grandfather's lack of contrition and blatant denial of the reality of what was happening in the concentration camps.