Why we have a duty to remember the evil and inhumane events of the Holocaust
No one can visit a former Nazi concentration camp and not be profoundly moved by the experience.
It is shocking to be reminded of what human beings can do to other human beings.
Perhaps we refer to the Holocaust so often, we do it with too little thought?
Perhaps we should force ourselves to re-read the horrors of an event in our recent history.
An event so recent in fact, there are still people alive today who can describe them to us.
There are some graphic and disturbing recollections of the experiments at that time – shortly before the Second World War came to an end – and as disturbing as it might be to learn about them, it is perhaps our duty to do so.
So that we don’t forget what happened.
And we don’t forget how many people suffered in these dreadful places.
It makes the stories of those who survived these death camps all the more remarkable.
Like Manfred Goldberg, who will meet Prince William and Kate today.
He now lives in London but describes the events of the early 1940s with the kind of clarity you might expect from someone who suffered so much.
Like how his life hung on a thread each and every day.
Like how, at any point, he could have been selected for a gas chamber, or a death march or a mass shooting by machine gun squads.
Like how he went into the camp with his brother – but he has never seen him since.
Gdansk, the city close to the Stutthof camp, is now a modern and thriving Polish port.
And the Duke and Duchess are likely to receive a very warm welcome here.
But there are people alive today, who will remind them of the darkest possible moments in this area’s history.
And it’s important we are all reminded of what happened – just over 70 years ago.