Evil, Madness, and Truth

Evil, Madness, and Truth uses a fictional narrative to present a number of ethical issues that will challenge readers. It centres on the autobiography of Gerda, the fictional illegitimate daughter of an actual, and infamous, female Nazi concentration camp guard, never named, who was tried and executed as a war criminal.

Taken from her mother when she was a few weeks old, Gerda only discovered who her mother was when she was twelve years old - this by being told by her mother's sister, who adopted her and whom she believed was her mother. She is devasted by this news. Finding out the details of her mother's life and crimes becomes an obsession, and what she learns has a huge impact on her psychologically, emotionally and socially. It directs the journey of her life, including an intellectual path that sets her career as a philosopher preoccupied with evil and madness.

Underpinning the narrative, and informing it, is an exercise in the philosophical inquiry in how evil has been understood. The book is an unusual hybrid of fact, fiction and philosophy.