A walk in Wannsee
After making my way past lakeshore villas and yacht clubs, I walked along a tree-lined driveway and into a house that lays bare the banality of evil.
The heat had subsided a little so I decided to forego the bus and walk from the railway station. I crossed the road to the lakeshore. Beneath clear skies, ferries kicked up low crystal wakes on the glassy water.
I was tempted to catch a boat ride and pass time in the sun watching the slow editing of the landscape. But I’d come to see a place that lay further on, somewhere in the shadows of the lakeshore: the House of the Wannsee Conference.
On 20 January 1942, fifteen high-ranking representatives of the SS, the Nazi Party and various ministries gathered at a villa in Wannsee. They were there to discuss and coordinate the deportation and murder of the Jews of Europe.
I’d studied the Wannsee Conference at school but, devoid of personal stories, the documents had refused to come to life for me. And, sat in a Midlands classroom, it had been impossible to picture the sort of place where such a thing could happen.
Decades later, there were few clues in my walk from the station – just streets lined with expensive houses and sailing clubs. When I reached the villa, I almost missed it. Set back from the road, the genteel white building exudes an anonymous calm. It was midweek and there were few other visitors around.