Book tease... Explaining Hitler, by Ron Rosenbaum

One can sense why Lanzmann finds in the impressionable plasticity of the baby pictures a fatally alluring invitation, an invitation that lures the unwary into the seductive labyrinth of ratiocination, the deceptive and dangerous promise of understanding. Dangerous perhaps because at the heart of the labyrinth the forbidden fruit on this particular tree of knowledge, lurks the logic of the aphorism: "To understand all is to forgive all." To embark upon the attempt to understand Hitler, understand all the processes that transformed this innocent babe into a mass murderer, is to risk making his crimes 'understandable' and thus, Lanzmann implies, to acknowledge the forbidden possibility of having to forgive Hitler.

Explaining Hitler, by Ron Rosenbaum