It is not often I interest myself in what the British Royal Family does. But this was about making portraits, and some fantastic artists were sketching a range of interesting Jewish faces. I turned the television up, and took two streptomycine. This vile sputum has to stop, I thought. In the meantime here was a worthy distraction.

Brushstrokes, cutting to German landscapes - so familiar, because we used to live in Germany. And alongside this chat sat the memory of a documentary by Luke Harding the night before, of the confessions of the last surviving Nazis- more of the mundane rather than the shocking - those who joined the SS (the storm troopers) did not know that is what they were doing - they were young and their parents were told that this was an elite organisation - the pay is better. (Storyville, The Final Account aired on BBC4)

A slight movement by the sitter, another stroke of the brush by the artist, another day to day story of a death camp, narrated casually.

As we forgive those, who trespass against us

Over a while, it became clear that despite being in concentration camps, these 90 year olds were almost to a man and woman, forgiving. As they spoke in a matter of fact way about the different ways people could die, and the political and national range of 'miscreants' in the camps, I recalled that for several years we lived only a few miles from Bergen-Belsen. This was one of the first concentration camps which was liberated by Allied soldiers in 1945. We drove past it in order to go to the shops in Celle, at least once a month from my middle teens onwards.

Imperial implications

The mind does jump around - I also recalled immediately that the Azad Hind Fauj were being tried at the Red Fort in a year or so after that. Before that of course, there was troop raising, and social chit chat between Subhas Bose and the enemies of our enemy. Here are two pictures: the top one is Subhas Bose chatting smilingly to a chap called Himmler, head of the SS, who systematically marched 6 million Jews to their death in camps. When Bose was there, it had already started. Did he know the kind of monsters that he was making deals with? I doubt it. The second of course is Bose meeting Hitler.

What did the British public think of this? After the second world war ended, and the concentration camps were being liberated in Germany, the story of the INA and the Free India Legion was seen as so inflammatory that, fearing mass revolts and uprisings—not only in India, but across its empire—the British government actually stopped the BBC from broadcasting their story. Bits of the Indian Army were already refusing to execute commands given by the British to act against fellow Indians.

I came back to today - the SS soldiers unthinkingly carried on filling cattle trucks with some of the most talented, educated and well to do human beings in their country on the basis of their race, and march them through the back of the woods behind our house in Germany, to be worked beyond their capacity, and starved to death at Belsen camp. Two such marchers were meeting at age 90 on my screen. My mind went back to the hounding which is associated with a specific race based agenda; I was only fifteen when I first went to Belsen, with an American visitor. His camera almost caught fire. I didn't sleep at night for ten days. It didn't help that we were reading from the diaries of Ann Frank at school at the time.

Is there a moral in this story? Germans have a huge respect for hierarchy- be careful Mr Modi to learn from history. These people will suspend their judgment, if ordered to do pretty much anything by their superiors, so strong is their sense of hierarchy. Before we take advice from Germans, it might be worth reminding ourselves of this. They have proved it.

My personal war on this microbe took over; it was time to take my second dose of antibiotics. In the programme everyone had started to move away from the gallery where these amazing portraits were displayed. One of the grandchildren was weeping. I switched off the television. As I was writing this, my very English partner pointed out that I should not forget the Bengal Famine - was that 3 million people?

What had the British given these people other than a homeland to build a new life? The chance to tell their side of the story to successive generations - the holocaust story is in schools everywhere. This is no mean gift, and ultimately bigger than a set of beautiful portraits will ever be.

After this particular set of mass murders, was born the word 'genocide'.