The Flemish Train Wreck

We in the twenty-first century walk on the graves of those untold millions who perished during the violent twentieth century, and, though we barely admit it to ourselves, let alone others, we are fascinated: we travel to far-off places, to gawk, to learn, to honour, to remember, to mourn, to write, to educate, and, at the end of the day, to holiday and to imbibe and to spend, caught in a Manichaean cycle of revelry and repentance ...