"One example of our inability to cope with large numbers is our lack of comprehension of the magnitude of the Holocaust. During the Adolf Eichmann trial in Israel, it was the individual murders that registered in our memories and our senses rather than the descriptions of mass murders. For many of us who attended the trial, Eichmann had to answer for personally whipping to death a fifteen-year-old Jewish boy who stole an apple. Large numbers tend to become abstract, too abstract to identify with. No writer can write about the six million of the Holocaust; we must write about individuals, about families."