Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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History and freedom on trial
Today, two Polish historians await the verdict of a libel case brought against them for documenting Polish complicity in the extermination of the Jews during World War II. DAVID ROSENBERG reports
The Nazis’ largest death camp, Auschwitz
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
TWO WEEKS ago I was preparing a talk for a PCS union branch for Holocaust Memorial Day.
That day commemorates the liberation of the Nazis’ largest death camp, Auschwitz, by the Red Army.
Jews from more than 20 countries were deported to their deaths there. But in that talk I remarked that the prime focus on Auschwitz obscures a key aspect of the Holocaust that needs to be assimilated: that, on the eve of the Nazi invasion, half of the Jews who would be murdered in the Holocaust were citizens of Poland.
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WILL STONE witnesses an experimental piano concerto inspired by the work of a young Jewish victim of the Nazis
