NORWAY AND AUSCHWITZ - The Links

Freedom through work? - Not in this place

Having just got back from Krakow in Poland, I visited the the Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp where over 1 million people were murdered by the Nazis. It really does make a huge impression on a person when you see the piles of children's shoes, suitcases, human hair and spectacles amongst other things --- All these belonged to living people who were murdered for a perverted ideal. The linkages to Schindler's factory in Krakow where 1,000 Jews were saved are obvious. Similarly the links to the other people who so bravely saved the lives of those most persecuted should always be celebrated. "Freedom Through Work" the motto of the camp,never had a more hollow ring; to my horror, German drugs and cosmetics firms tested their products on the Auschwitz inmates, which again beggars belief. We thought that the horrors of Auschwitz were buried forever, but unfortunately they re-appeared in Norway where a member of an extreme right wing organisation, murdered over 90 innocent people in the name of de-islamification and racial purity. Where does it all end?

People may be prejudiced against others -- the right thing for all of us to do is to recognise these situations and to fight against them ourselves. We may all have individual battles to fight but we should never abandon the fight against such unseemly views both in ourselves and others as well. Only then we will ensure that events like Auschwitz and Norway do not recur.