Written by April Chavez

Talon Fisher, among those who attended a lecture on the Holocaust Friday afternoon at Allan Hancock College, said the presentation expanded his understanding of how deeply rooted ideologies of hate can lead to atrocity.

“I was interested in exploring a little bit more about the earlier history of the Holocaust and the conceptions that sort of helped it become a reality — and how hate grows into violent action and eventually genocide,” said Fisher, 25.

The lecture on the Holocaust was presented by adjunct English instructor Mark James Miller in the college Forum, and was open to students, staff, and community members.

The powerful presentation offered a detailed overview of the Holocaust’s origins, the rise of Nazi ideology, and the systematic atrocities committed against the Jewish people and other persecuted groups using historical accounts, personal reflections, and visual slides.

During the two-hour presentation, Miller guided the audience through the timeline of events leading up to and during the genocide that claimed the lives of over six million Jews.

“Auschwitz is where at least 1 to 1.5 million human beings were murdered,” one slide read. Miller discussed how engineers and architects worked to design equipment that could kill as efficiently as possible — followed by the chilling reality that some victims survived only hours after arrival.

He highlighted infamous figures such as Dr. Josef Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death” for his experiments on prisoners, and emphasized the disturbing contrast between the Nazis’ public and private lives.

“For the most part, the killers — from the boots on the ground to the higher-ups — lived normal lives as the Holocaust progressed,” Miller said. “They played with their children, went to church, celebrated holidays, as if mass murder was just another day at the office.”

“I don’t know how they lived normal lives after doing what they do — and then they go back and do it again. What kind of man can shoot a woman holding a baby?” Miller asked.

The lecture also addressed Holocaust denial and the need to preserve truth in history.

“It is one of the most, if not the most, documented atrocities ever documented,” Miller said, reading excerpts from The Holocaust, by Martin Gilbert, and citing other historical sources throughout his talk.

Drawing parallels to his own life, Miller reflected on seeing “Whites Only” signs during family trips along Route 66, tying the horrors of the Holocaust to broader patterns of racism and discrimination in American history.

The lecture focused not only on the chronology of the Holocaust but on the social and political conditions that allowed it to unfold. 

Fisher noted that while he had learned about the Holocaust in a general sense, the lecture illuminated the broader scope of victims and the pre-existing narratives that helped justify the violence.

“It wasn’t just Jews — it was, largely, but essentially it was a purity spiral of a state trying to purge anyone unlike them,” he said, calling the experience “eye-opening.”