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Our Children and Grandchildren Must Learn about this Terrible Place
The United Kingdom will join the project to maintain the grounds and buildings at the former Nazi German concentration and death camp, Auschwitz. — The Polish Prime Minister has outlined to me the steps that he wishes to take to make sure the permanence of that Memorial at Auschwitz. I was able to tell him today that we will join other countries in supporting the maintenance and retention on a permanent basis — said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown after a morning meeting in Warsaw with Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
— We will do what we can, not only to support this project, but also to support the numbers of young children who wish to visit Auschwitz from our schools and to maintain the education work that is necessary — added Brown.
Commenting on these remarks, Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, said “Great Britain has joined the increasingly numerous group of countries that have announced their public support for the Fund for the preservation of Auschwitz. This is understandable in the context of the great care taken by the British to convey to young people the fundamental lesson that emanates from this place. It is no accident that, after Poles, the largest numbers of people who come here each year are British.”
On the afternoon of April 28, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Mrs. Brown paid a private visit to the Auschwitz Memorial.
Prime Minister and Mrs. Brown saw extensive fragments of the Museum exhibition. They toured block 4, devoted to the killing of the Jews, and block 5, which contains some of the items plundered from the victims, as well as the interior of the first gas chamber and crematorium at the camp. The Prime Minister lighted a symbolic white candle in tribute to the victims at the Death Wall in the courtyard of block 11, where the Nazis shot several thousand people.
In the second part of their visit, Prime Minister and Mrs. Brown visited the site of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. They climbed the tower at the main guardhouse and walked along the railroad platform where the Germans carried out the selection of the Jews deported here to be killed. They laid a wreath at the monument to the victims of the camp.
“What I have seen this afternoon is a harrowing testament to the murder of so many who suffered here the extremes of terror. What happened here is a shared human story—a perpetual reminder of all the darkness of which the world is capable, but also a story of what the world can endure and survive” — Prime Minister Brown wrote in the Museum visitors' book.
Gordon Brown (born 1951), is the leader of the British Labour Party and has been Prime Minister of Britain since June 27, 2007.
PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN’S INSCRIPTION IN THE MUSEUM VISITORS' BOOK
What I have seen this afternoon is a harrowing testament to the murder of so many who suffered here the extremes of terror. What happened here is a shared human story—a perpetual reminder of all the darkness of which the world is capable, but also a story of what the world can endure and survive.
That is why our children and grandchildren must learn about this terrible place, and so become able to share the grief and shame of mankind's greatest evil, and also share the hope that comes from our ability to choose, our ability to act justly. As the book of Deuteronomy tells us: "Justice, justice shall you pursue".
As Elie Wiesel wrote: "Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair." The British people reject despair. We say with one voice that there is no place for such hate in our world.
In this place of desolation I reaffirm my belief that we all have a duty—each and every one of us—not to stand by, but to stand up against discrimination and prejudice. As we remember the worst of our past, we must each commit ourselves to serve the best of our future.
Gordon Brown, April 28, 2009
Visitors' book of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
