I rarely buy newspapers, but today I went for the Financial Times because of the stock-exchange crisis looming from across the Atlantic. Not surprisingly, I was none the wiser after reading all the articles on the subject. But then I came upon an article about Auschwitz, accompanied by a good photograph of the infamous camp gate with its pious exhortation about the virtues of toil. After more than fifty years, the deserted scene appeared almost quaint. Suddenly, I remembered an aerial photograph of Auschwitz I had seen years ago, most likely in Israel. It showed the unadulterated geometry of the camp—a product of an engineer’s or a surveyor’s sober mind. For me, that orthogonal array of buildings, roads, and tracks is the horror of horrors, far surpassing the mangled bodies, the piles of broken dentures and spectacles, the crowds of emaciated inmates staring blindly into the cameras of their saviors. I wonder why this aerial photograph is not seen more often. Perhaps it would be too dispiriting a reminder of the imminent future.