22nd May, 2009 - War Diary

My boss brought in his dad’s war diary today.

I keep calling my boss my boss even though he is no longer a partner and technically I am my boss’s boss now. But somehow I don’t feel like my boss’s boss so I still call him the boss.
Anyhow. His father had been involved in the liberation of some of the Nazi concentration camps at the end of the Second World War, and his diary – typed up from his manuscript – is absolutely gripping stuff. It’s a firsthand graphic account of the absolute horror that existed within living memory only a few hundred miles from where I am typing this. I could jump on an Easy Jet flight and get there in a few hours.

I read it in the Baker’s shop next to my office, and I found it utterly creepy to think that the hand that written this was only a two little generations away from me – not even that.
The veneer of civilisation is rather thin and is to be cherished.