Nothing is ever totally conclusive with the exception of death and taxes.

Thank you for a comprehensive, interesting and balanced summary of thinking on this immensely important issue. I have read some material on the Holocaust including survivor accounts (though nowhere near as much as John). What struck me was how many apparently ordinary and decent people either turned a blind eye to mass murder or actively participated.

The recent explosion of antisemitism, including rationalisations for violence against Jews, looks scarily like the preconditions to the rise of Nazi thinking that ultimately led to mass murder. It is imperative that we understand where the Holocaust came from if we are to stop it happening again.

I may have been tempted to chime in but I read this, and then thought better of it.
"John has a particular interest in reconciliation between Palestinians and Jews."

The article is good as far as it goes in regards to fairly summarising the various historic evaluations of the Nazi Holocaust and the background to it.

Where I find it a little deficient is that is carries the widely held view that the Holocaust was the inevitable outcome of Nazi antisemitism and had been long in the planning.

In fact, the notion of committing genocide against the Jews was a very late policy adopted by the Nazi hierarchy. As late as 1941, Nazi policy was to relocate the Jewish diaspora out of Europe. The idea to move Jews to Madagascar wasn't a Nazi invention but was enthusiastically adopted by senior Nazis and extensive investigation into it was conducted especially after the fall of France which at that time controlled Madagascar.

In the end the policy lapsed because (1) the numbers of Jews that needed to be moved was ever-expanding with each new German victory and (2) the British controlled the sea-lanes which would need to be used to relocate the millions of Jews to the other side of the world.

Thereafter, the same Nazi leaders who had favoured the Madagascar solution began to work on the genocide.