To the editor:
It was with interest that I read the article by Mike Latona, in the June 2007 issue of the Catholic Courier, concerning the visit of the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra to the death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Mike Latona wrote that “They spent a day at the death camps of Auschwitz, where millions of people — mostly Jews — are believed to have been exterminated at the hands of the Nazis.”
For shame! The millions of people were exterminated and the thousands of artifacts which the Nazis were unable to dispose of are there for all to see — not believe.
We now have people denying that the Holocaust ever happened and statements like the one made by Mike Latona only add fuel to the lie.
Until recently my family were on friendly terms with a Polish, Catholic man who was incarcerated at Auschwitz-Birkenau along with hundreds of others like him. When he died, not long ago, he still bore his concentration camp number tattooed on his forearm.
Statements such as the one made by Mike Latona reinforce the ignorance of the general public about the conditions endured under the evil Nazi regime.
Joyce Szwagiel
Drummond Street
Auburn
