I invariably mistime my walk to the bus stop and miss the bus. In the morning it’s not an issue, but on my way home at one or two in the morning I am faced with a twenty minute wait. And it has been -11 Celsius for the last week in Berlin, with an ice-cold, chilling wind.

So I set off walking; it’s only a 25 minute walk home anyway. After fifteen minutes my hands and ears are freezing, and my nose has gone numb so I can’t tell if there’s snot frozen to the end of it. I start to think about how long I could survive in such temperatures.

I am wrapped up in good clothes - Primark’s finest, no less. A coat, jumper and shirt. Gloves, if I’ve remembered, and sturdy boots. But I know that 68 years ago, not far away, families of Jews were standing outside in this same weather, stripped naked, heads shaved, half-starving, for ten hours. Waiting to be admitted into Auschwitz.

It isn’t possible to imagine what those people went through. Of course they were killed - gassed naked and freezing after neatly piling up their clothes. Bulldozed into pits like worthless meat. But people are killed all the time. Many countries kill criminals. Criminals kill victims. Our military kills other soldiers, and plenty of civilians. Tsunamis come and drown 15,000 Japanese people. People being killed is reality, as much a fact of life as death. There’s nothing to be done about that, and I don’t lose sleep over it.

What is worse is cruelty and evil. Forcing familes into crates with no food and water. Leaving them for days with nothing. Separating women, children and babies, and beating them, naked and screaming, into gas chambers. Leaving men knowing that their loved ones have been humiliated and then killed. Taking every single possession and item of clothing from those men and leaving them with nothing, barely even a name. Working them in rags, in the freezing cold, with starvation rations, until they are no longer able to move. And then killing them.

Human nature has not changed since the Holocaust. It’s the same human nature that was there before - in Nanjing in 1937, and since - in Rwanda and Bosnia in 1994. A Holocaust has already happened in my lifetime, and will certainly happen again.

It gives me strength as I walk home to know that I can survive a 25-minute stroll in chilly weather with a full belly. Back to my heated flat, and all my possessions. With the knowledge that the people I love are safe and secure. I am thankful that I am here, now, at this time.

My flat here is in a block that was built in around 1900. The communal areas haven’t changed since then - everything is original, and run-down. As I walk through the lobby towards the winter sunshine, heading into work, I often consider that this view is exactly what the occupants of my block saw in 1944. The sound of the door closing, the smell of bins and mould, the echo of footsteps on tiles.

I know that some of those people looked at this view, then walked out of the door and never returned. And I know that others walked out of that door and carried out evil tasks. Evil is not far away, and we must be watchful.

I thought hard about whether to write this post. It’s a depressing subject, and not one that consumes me. But it’s important to remember, just occasionally. One of the books in my flat is Survival in Auschwitz by Italian Jewish chemist Primo Levi. I could only manage the first couple of dozen pages, because more than a few pages at a time is overwhelming. At some point I’ll buy it and finish it. But not now.