Holocaust stories must be told, but their popularity is deeply uncomfortable
As trends go, the Holocaust is perhaps not what you might think of as a “must-have” subject for books today. But check out the bestseller lists and you’ll see plenty of novels and biographies with Auschwitz in the title. It’s an inescapable, uncomfortable fact: the Holocaust is currently trendy.
Humans have always been fascinated by the macabre. A couple of hundred years ago, people would flock to watch public hangings. Today, you can go on Jack the Ripper tours. True crime documentaries and blockbuster movies are littered with brutality and violence.
Personally, I watch the violent bits through my hands and I can’t bear horror films. As an author, I’ve built my reputation writing books featuring mermaids and fairies and time travel and pirate dogs.
And now I’ve written about the Holocaust, in a novel inspired by my dad’s escape from Nazi-occupied Austria. While the idea had been simmering in the background for a decade, my novel seems to be coming out at a time when appetite for such stories is high.
It’s a strange thing. Holocaust deniers are out there in growing numbers, so keeping alive the truth is as important as ever. On the other hand, I can’t help feeling a little discomfort and questioning what it is that people are looking for when they choose these books, watch these films or even visit the sites of such atrocities.
In 2019, I set off in a van with my wife on the most difficult research trip I’ve ever made. We visited concentration camps, museums and synagogues in five countries across Europe, delving into the heart of the Nazi era. Each concentration camp broke me a little bit more. At Dachau, I felt an overwhelming sense of grief. At Mauthausen, I felt rage as I looked out across the fields where the SS used to invite local people to play football, in between murder and torture.
But it was Auschwitz-Birkenau that crept under my skin and refused to leave. Standing on the dusty road at the end of the train tracks at Birkenau and walking to the buildings where, at its height, 12,000 people a day were murdered in the gas chambers, was the