http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2157369/Euro-2012-The-unique-evil-Auschwitz-deeply-distasteful-football-PR-stunt.html
The unique evil of Auschwitz and a deeply distasteful football PR stunt
Some years ago, on a fact-finding trip to Munich, I visited the nearby site of the former Nazi concentration camp at Dachau.
It was an unsettling and disturbing experience, beyond being brought up against the horrors that had taken place there. For I found myself surrounded by coach parties of Japanese and other tourists eagerly photographing the camp sights — and even posing for snaps in front of the exhibits.
I thought about this queasy-making ‘Holocaust tourism’ when I read about last week’s visit to Auschwitz by seven members of the England football squad, ahead of their first match today in the Euro 2012 football championships being held jointly in Poland and Ukraine.
Members of the England team enter the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, under the sign which translates into: ‘Work makes you free’
Members of the England team enter the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, under the sign which translates into: ‘Work makes you free’
Of course, the fact that Poland was the epicentre of the industrialised Nazi killing machine, and had virtually its entire population of three million Polish Jews exterminated — not to mention the bestial part played by the Ukrainians in the Nazi genocide — is impossible to forget.
Many visit the Auschwitz extermination camp, where some 1.5 million Jews and others were murdered, as an educational experience to learn about the unimaginable events of the Holocaust.
Indeed, the England squad’s trip was organised by the Football Association jointly with the Holocaust Educational Trust.