Another

Yesterday Mrs N and I attended another talk (it was 'Enlighten' weekend in Lichfield, a series of events aimed at making us once again a 'city of philosophers'). The talk was by biographer and self-confessed journalist Anne Sebba, and the subject was her recent book, The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz. Unfortunately I hadn't noticed that, at some time after the programme for the weekend was printed, the time for this talk had been brought forward by half an hour, so we missed the first half. However, to judge by the second half, it was an excellent, if harrowing, talk, telling an extraordinary story, and telling it well. Towards the end, the chair (Nick Higham) invited questions from the floor. The first few were good, thoughtful questions – but then came one more, one that wasn't really a question at all. A youngish woman in the front row, who seemed to be in some mild emotional distress, wished to display her tender moral sensibility by 'wondering' if the Jews, having suffered the…