More from Mauthausen: How didn’t the average person see it coming?

Here’s a note from a reader to Mike Scher:

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Mike,
 
Kudos for your post The March to Mauthausen. You are spot on — how did the law under the Nazis allow this sort of thing to happen? That’s an integral part of the story.
 
I talked last week with a German lawyer about the EU data privacy directive. He explained that, unlike in the U.S., data privacy is classified as a human right in Europe in part because of the abuse of personal data by the Nazis (and later by East Germany). The Europeans turning that memory into a legal protection is encouraging.
 
Sometimes, when I write my surname, I’m reminded of the extermination camp that functioned in my ancestral town in Poland, and think of the steps that led up to the Holocaust. I wonder “How didn’t the average person see it coming? How didn’t the lawyers and judges see it coming?” Then I think of what’s happened here since 9-11 — of course on a less severe scale and with different moral objectives — and start to understand.
 
Thanks for your work Mike.
 
[Name withheld]