BOOKS
July 7, 2002 | MICHAEL FRANK, Michael Frank is a contributing writer to Book Review.
On a wintry morning in January 1942, 15 German bureaucrats, representatives of ministries responsible for the "Jewish question," repaired to a comfortable villa by a lake in Wannsee, a suburb southwest of Berlin where members of the German bourgeoisie had been summering since the late 19th century. The villa had a lake view, a music room and a billiards table and offered pleasant food, central heating and hot and cold running water. The men sat around a table for perhaps an hour and a half.