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UNITED KINGDOM
Photo: Altogether, some six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will visit Auschwitz for the 60th anniversary of the former Nazi concentration camp's liberation, it has been announced. Prince Edward will also join
the UK delegation in Poland for National Holocaust Memorial Day on
27 January. Between 1.1 and 1.5 million people, mainly Jews, were
killed at Auschwitz. The Tories said they were glad Mr Straw had
been "shamed" into going, having earlier criticised the decision
to send a lower-ranking official. Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael
Ancram said: "I am glad the foreign secretary has finally been
shamed into representing Britain at this important act of
commemoration. "Once again this government has shown crass
insensitivity until it has been forced by public opinion into
doing what it should have done in the first place." In Britain, the Queen and Prince Philip will lead the nation's commemoration at a service in Westminster Hall, London. The Queen will also host a reception for holocaust survivors at St James's Palace. Altogether, some six million people, mainly Jews, perished in the Holocaust. The Queen's grandson, Prince Harry, sparked outrage earlier this week after photographs of him wearing a Nazi uniform at a costume party emerged. The prince, 20, apologised, but critics have called for him to go to Auschwitz for the commemoration of the Soviets' 1945 liberation of the camp. Prince Harry should see for himself "the results of the hated symbol he so foolishly and brazenly chose to wear", Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center said.
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Harry should listen to me and
learn
Prince Harry, in the midst of a row over wearing Nazi fancy dress, should join other young people to hear about what happened in the Holocaust, Auschwitz survivor Susan Pollack says.
Susan will be at a commemoration service with
the Queen in two weeks
Young people generally show good awareness of what happened, she says, and she invited the prince to join one of her talks about her experiences which she gives to school groups, students and Holocaust centre visitors. "I'd like him to come and listen to me once. I would welcome him to participate in one of the talks," says Mrs Pollack, 74. Harry's choice to wear a Nazi outfit to a fancy-dress party is, she says, no laughing matter. "You can't laugh. There's nothing to joke about," she says. "I wish there was." "He is 20. My gosh, students of 14 know about it. I am absolutely aghast. "Ignorance is no longer acceptable about the Nazis. If [people] don't know what Nazis have done, they should drop their heads and look down at the ground." Family's fate: In 1943, when she was 13, Mrs Pollack and her family were rounded up in their village of Felsogod, Hungary. As far as she knows, her father was killed by the fascists. Her mother was gassed when they arrived at Auschwitz in May 1944. Her elder brother Laszlo survived, despite his ordeal on slave labour duty - he moved bodies "from the gas chambers to the oven". He never recovered later in life from what he had experienced in that time. Susan also survived Auschwitz, selection at the hands of Doctor Josef Mengele, slave labour, and a death march to Belsen before liberation. She has been married to Abraham, also a holocaust survivor, for more than 50 years and they have three daughters. She has given the talks for the past 15 years, she says, "because I was there, I speak for those who can't, who died". "We are not going to be around very long so I've got to say what I can." Her testimony, she says, tells people the dangers of a "dark and evil side of humanity" and the need to live in a free, equal society with human rights.
And despite
palace whispers that the Nazi costume was a young man's mistake, Susan
says young people have a good understanding of the holocaust.
"Learning about it in school lends it validity and legitimacy," she
says. "It's absolutely vital." Return to Belsen: On the 60th
anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation on 27 January, she will take
part in commemoration services in London with other holocaust
survivors. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh will be there. Susan will,
she says, proudly hold a commemorative candle lit in Belsen, where she
returned earlier this year. "I was very happy that I did go back," she
says. "Why? Because in my own mind, on the landscape I was still
seeing mountains of corpses as they were. "But I saw a large area of
mass graves, serene and quiet and kept. That visual input has given me
a little bit more peace. "And I saw a lot of German families visiting
there, so it's a changed world to some extent." As to whether, on the
day, she will raise with the Queen her grandson's ill-chosen outfit?
"I'm a grandmother, and she is a grandmother. I don't like to upset
her. If one doesn't know, it's not going to help by me telling her. If
you have ears but you don't hear, eyes but you don't see..." "She will
know."
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