Hello there!
There is something really wrong with some people. Bad enough as it was when that drunken student in Sheffield behaved inappropriately on a war memorial, but the theft of the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland is pretty unspeakable. (BBC News carried it here)
I have had the privilege of organising and leading several tours to world war battlefield sites over the last few years, and our visits to the Commonwealth War Cemeteries in particular are always incredibly moving for all. The engravings on the headstones from friends or family get to me every time.
I have also experienced Auschwitz-Birkenau twice, most recently in August, and I shall hopefully do so again in February. The scale of the Holocaust is unimaginable no matter how hard you try to comprehend, but visiting somewhere like this you begin to appreciate the utterly devastating and inhuman nature of it all.
It could only be a good thing if more students were given the opportunity to visit a Commonwealth War Cemetery during their time at school, because hearing the tales and seeing the numbers is never as powerful as walking past the graves of teenagers who died in combat. And if we can avoid war, we can avoid the most heinous of all crimes; genocide.
Gareth.












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