I WAS very interested to read the article in last week’s paper about the visit of a group of Fenland teenagers, and your reporter Tom Jackson, to the death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.

Whilst one million Jews were killed at the camps, it must not be forgotten that thousands of socialists, trade unionists, disabled, and gypsies were also murdered there.

Fortunately, in Europe today, the mass base for fascism in the peasantry and the impoverished middle-class of small businessmen and women no longer exists.

Never again will the ruling class of Europe put its future in the hands of a middle-class upstart like Adolf Hitler, who lost half of Europe to ‘Communism’ for nearly half a century.

If the ruling class wants to prevent the coming to power of a ‘Communist’ government it will use the military, which has a thousand and one links to the ruling class through marriage etc.

This is exactly what happened in Chile in September 1973, when General Pinochet overthrew the democratically-elected government of President Allende, in a military coup.

However, I do hope that the teenagers who visited the death camps will discuss their experiences with fellow students as a warning from history to future generations.

JOHN SMITHEE

Wisbech