WARSAW: Delegations from both England and Germany will visit the site of the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau to pay their respects to the 1.5m victims, mostly Jews, of the Nazi holocaust.

The German delegation will include coach Joachim Low and captain Philipp Lahm as well as DFB president Wolfgang Niersbach, Bundesliga boss Reinhard Rauball and Germany manager Oliver Bierhoff plus Polish-born Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski.

The visit will take place on Friday, a day after Germany’s last friendly international against Israel in Leipzig. Germany – facing Portugal, Holland and Denmark in the group stage – will be based in the Polish city of Gdansk.

Representatives of England, based in Krakow, will visit Auschwitz before their opening fixture against France, soon after their June 6 arrival date, and sign the museum’s guestbook before lighting a candle of remembrance on the train tracks at Birkenau.

Other squad members will make a trip to the factory in Krakow once owned by Oskar Schindler, the German who helped to save over a thousand Jewish people from the death camps.

The Football Association and Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) have entered into a partnership to produce an educational resource on the Holocaust for all secondary schools and colleges in England and Football Association chairman David Bernstein welcomed the initiative.

He said: “This educational partnership brings together the important work of teaching future generations about the horrors of the Holocaust, using the ability of football to interest and engage young people.

“There are so many lessons to be learnt and understood, and we believe football can play its part in encouraging society to speak out against intolerance in all its forms.

“I am proud that Roy Hodgson and the England team are supporting such an important initiative and I would encourage all English schools to take advantage of the learning materials that will be created.”

 

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