A Journey Through Auschwitz – Echoes in Our Times and Lessons for Contemporary India

Lecture Series on Governance and Politics in South Asia, Department of Political Science, SAI

The talk will be preceded by a reception starting 13:00!

“It happened, so it can happen again…”

Beginning with this warning that chemist, writer, and Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi pronounced for all humankind to heed, peace worker and scholar Dr Harsh Mander will reflect on his own journey to Auschwitz in February this year. He will speak about what went through his heart and mind as he walked over the soil in which the ashes of a million victims of hate were mixed. 

A 2023 Pew Survey revealed that 87 percent Indians preferred authoritarian or military rulers, more than in any other country in which the survey was held. Dr Mander will speak of his longing to “gently hold the hand of every Indian who feels elevated by the politics of hate and fear and unfreedom and walk with them through the bleak grounds ofAuschwitz”. He will further discuss the admiration of the founders of Hindutva nationalism for Adolf Hitler and the way he “solved” the Jewish problem and the surging contemporary support for the Far Right in Germany, and in countries around the globe. For all of them to heed, he will recall the terrors of Auschwitz, to reveal how ordinary people can so quickly tumble so deep into the rabbit hole of intense hate. He will speak of what happened when the son of Rudolf Höss, the first Commandant of Auschwitz, on whom the film Zone of Interest was made, revisited Auschwitz as a 92-year-old man. The lecture will end with a story of heroic sacrifice and kindness amidst the horrors of Auschwitz.

About the speaker:

Dr. Harsh Mander is involved in different initiatives related to human rights. From the autumn of 2017 he established and led the important national initiative which he called the Karwan-e-Mohabbat (www.karwanemohabbat.in). Literally, the Caravan of Love, the initiative tries to counter rising hate and fear in the country, but not with hate; instead with love and solidarity. The Karwan visits the families of those who lost loved ones to hate violence and lynching, for atonement, solidarity, healing, conscience and justice, and to promote goodwill and trust between communities. Dr Mander was shortlisted for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 and is the Chairperson of the Centre for Equity Studies, Delhi.