WWII turned prewar moral certitudes totally upside down

In 1945, it was revealed that the very top of Modernity's Great Tree of Being had given us the worst killing machine ever (in the form of Auschwitz) while the very bottom of that Great Tree of Being had given us the best lifesaver ever (in the form of Penicillin).

That wasn't the way prewar 'pure is simple' modernity had said that Reality worked, at such forums as the famous 1939-1940 New York World's Fair.

Instead 'pure is simple' modernity had claimed that all the best moral actions was found among the very top big human civilized races and that all the worst evil moral actions were found among the tiny pathogenic bacteria, viruses and fungus at the very bottom of life.

That was what I was basically still taught in early elementary school in the 1950s, but looking around at the big nations trying to kill us kiddies with nuclear tipped rockets while tiny bacterial and fungus slime scraped off of jungle dirt were trying to save us with antibiotics, it sure didn't feel that way.

I was conceived five years after the end of WWII, but believe me, I still 'got it' ....