Mr Brown at Auschwitz

Nick Robinson at BBC On Line reports on Gordon Brown's visit to Auschwitz. Following in his footsteps will be a school party on a trip organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust. Robinson states that the aim of the HET is

... to send children from every British school here - to learn, and to pledge not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Are we talking about a literal pledge taking here? I don't know. If we are, leaving aside the issue of how long it will be remembered for, as laudable as a pledge not to commit genocide is, asking anyone to make it smacks of a kind of political indoctrination to me.  

Robinson continues,

After a visit to the gas chambers that claimed so many, Gordon Brown wrote in the visitors' book: "As we remember the worst of our past, we must each commit ourselves to serve the best of our future." He is planning to create some form of memorial to those British Schindlers who gave their lives trying to preserve the lives of others who were murdered by the Nazis.

Taken in a particular way, Brown's statement could be taken to be pro-eugenicist, but it would, of course, be simply mischievous to suggest that. I applaud his sentiment, but he must realise that his words are empty. For as long as Brown supports culture of death as evinced in Britain's contraceptive, abortion, stem cell research etc etc policies he supports the destruction of those who might have been part of the best of our future.

Calling British people who helped Jews escape the Nazis 'British Schindlers' is a testament to the media's enduring inability to resist pigeonholing people. That aside, a memorial to them is a splendid idea. But if Brown was really serious about promoting those who protected life, rather than destroyed it, well, from the paragraph above this one, you can guess what I would suggest he does.