IBM and the holocaust

In 2005, I went to the Czech Republic, mainly in and around Prague. I went out of town too and amongst my wanderings I went to the village of Terezin. It wasn’t an extermination camp although plenty died there. Rather it was a sort of gathering place where the Jews could be rounded up before being transported and killed.

Go back if you will to my blog of 14/11/2008 when I wrote about Terezin.
I wrote the following in my dairy at the time:

‘A chilling thought crossed my mind here. They managed all this with typewriters and telexes and still slaughtered 5m out of Europe’s 11m (their figure) Jews. What on Earth could they have done with PC’s and the Internet?’

Didn’t give it anymore thought until a few months ago when I stumbled upon something on the Internet. Apparently a German guy called Hollerith (of whom I had heard) invented the punch card and via a series of mergers and acquisitions led to the company we know of today as IBM. In 1933, the Nazis conducted a census of Germany and used punched cards to record the details of people including race.

Interesting. So that’s how they traced the Jews so quickly. See my musings are not so daft after all.

Footnote: Internet writings say that IBM were complicit in the holocaust but I see no real evidence. Yes their technology may have helped but it doesn’t mean that they collaborated in the gassings nor even that they were aware of them. I shall wait and see.