Sri Lanka, April 27 -- I had the most challenging task at the end of writing this essay. It was to find a picture that aligns with the theme of this essay which would not disturb the reader. I could not overcome that challenge. So I settled for a cover image of a book that deals with the theme of this essay.

English vocabulary holds few phrases as chilling as 'burnt alive' and 'buried alive'.It is a phrase that remains head and shoulders above fear. Just to read that phrase is a throw into a deep abyss of primal terror.

The Holocaust is a horrific scar on human history that serves as a constant reminder of this barbarity. Yet, it feels like just one chapter in a saga of a civilisation. Literati grappled with these horrors in the 19th ce...