I liked the part of the story where the Frenchman hired by the Nazis to create a list of Jews in France (Rene Carmille was the name I believe) instead used the same IBM technology to help organize the resistance. He strung the Nazis along for years. He and his family were executed in the street a few months before France was liberated, too late for Nazis to get anyone else produce the list.
Fascinating aspect of the story. FYI: The article says he died from exhaustion at Dachau. Just points to the fact that there is still so much to understand and uncover about this time period.
Very true. People often get an incomplete picture of things, which leads them to make the same kinds of mistakes that led up to WW2.
I still run into people who think the logic Nazis used only existed in the Germany of the era, but othering logic is deeply embedded in human culture. It comes out like this in our darkest moments, but all of us are vulnerable to it. Treating someone who commits atrocities as a monster keeps us from realizing how terrifyingly human they are and how short the path can be.
Pride month is a good time for this discussion because the Allies left a certain kind of person behind in the camps to serve out their sentences under laws based on the same kind of dehumanization the Nazis preyed on.
