*
And always in my heart – AV, JJC and AP – the loves of my life, моя прелесть, corazon, amante. For all the joys we’ve shared, and all that’s still to come …
*
Then hovering in the background for the last two decades, like a benevolent spirit, an artistic and political phenomenon, a one-man festival of ideas – my deepest gratitude to the irrepressible Gareth Evans. Bringing together the worlds of film, community activism, psychogeography, bookshops, music, performance, city walks, poetry, political protest and literary happenings. Organising extraordinary events on shoestrings and generosity of spirit, linking people from different backgrounds who’d never normally connect, making things happen, all the time. Who else, when you meet, would hand over bags of proof copies of critical texts on Chile and flyers about stopping the sell-off of public housing in Harringay and programmes of all-night Jarman screenings in east London dives? – all of them ‘essential!’, ‘crucial!’ ‘must-see!’. Where Peter Brook created his Empty Space, you Gareth have created a Gathering Space. And our culture would be so much poorer without it … Deep gratitude for all, and for too many links, recommendations, books, inspirations to list here – but I wanted to thank you for one particular stage in the book’s development, which was invaluable for me. There was a difficult year, riddled with challenges for both of us, but I remember the exhilaration of the late-night sessions we had in your tiny kitchen at Beaumont Court. I would return from a week’s writing in Wales, another chapter drafted, and then round to yours, and I’d read what I’d just written, and you’d listen, making notes, and then we’d talk into the early hours, often into the dawn with only the sound of blackbirds from the Upper Clapton Road drifting up to that little room. A sense of intense connection at that time and place. And I’d always leave buoyed up, always inspired, always reinvigorated …
*
And finally, the two people who have been my constant companions through the formidable mountains of this quest – my inspirational friends and guides in this writing labour for more than fifteen years – one of you at each shoulder as I researched and wrote – John Berger and Anne Michaels. Your words have created entire worlds. I will never be able to express how much your sustained support, passion and encouragement meant to me. You both gave me courage which I didn’t know I possessed, a fierce determination in the face of great challenges, and an absolute belief in the beauty and importance of the work. You both lifted me with this belief; your faith meant that I could withstand any blow of fate, any setback. It meant the world to me. You have carried me through.
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
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Copyright © Dan Gretton, 2019
Jacket image credit: Jacket design by Ceara Elliot
Dan Gretton has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published by William Heinemann in 2019
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Footnotes
1 Explorations: Maps and the Curiosity of a Child’s Mind
1 The story of the Saurer company appears in Chapter Five of Book One – ‘The Town of Organised Forgetting’.
2 Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer and the Desk Killer
1 See chapter notes for a summary of this research.
2 Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt, Chapter VII, ‘The Wannsee Conference, or Pontius Pilate.’
3 In the early stages of this research I used the term ‘desk murderer’. However, it soon became apparent that many of the individuals who kill from their desks do not have the criminal intent to do so, therefore ‘desk killer’ is a more accurate term. Desk murderers do exist, but, thankfully, are very few in number. Desk killers, however, are all around us.
4 See Chapter Thirteen: ‘The Doctors of Wannsee Meet in a Villa by the Lake’.
3 How We Look at History: A Moment at Liverpool Street Station
1 Sadly, Flor Kent’s original sculpture and installation is no longer outside Liverpool Street Station. The piece (together with the real objects and photographs) can now only be seen at the Imperial War Museum.
2 Taken from the transcript of Meili’s testimony to the US Senate, ‘Hearing on Shredding of Holocaust Era Documents’, 6 May 1997.
3 The Bergier Commission (Book One, Chapter Six – ‘Saurer: A Coda’).
4 I examine in detail IG Farben’s collusion with Nazism and the operation of their Buna-Monowitz complex at Auschwitz in the next volume of I You We Them.
4 Journeys with J.
1 Neil Kinnock at this time was leader of the opposition Labour Party and Michael Meacher was the shadow health secretary.
2 See chapter notes for details.
5 The Town of Organised Forgetting
1 The version of this document that Lanzmann includes in Shoah is considerably summarised, so I reproduce the full text here.
2 Kulmhof was the German name for the Chelmno extermination camp in Poland.
3 See chapter notes for more information.
4 Information on Just from Fateful Months by Christopher Browning, chapter 3: ‘The Development and Production of the Nazi Gas Van’, note 33.