Srs,—May I be permitted to comment upon a few points
the " anonymous " P.o.W. made in his letter which appeared in your issue of January 3rd? I am surprised that he, being a keen student of the British Press, condemns the whole work of Wilton Park and the other training centres mainly on account of a newspaper article. Whatever the contents of this particular article may be, it does not mean that it will ever come to pass. During the two-and-a-half years he has been reading the English newspapers, he should have learnt to form his own judgement on newspaper reports. It is very unlikely that the British public would agree to the "cheap, skilled" German labour— or in other words skilled slave labour—for it was the British people who expressed their utmost displeasure on the retention of the German P.o.W.s as slave labour, and it was not until in all the prominent papers articles and letters on this subject appeared that the Government gave way to the pressure of public opinion and brought out the repatriation scheme.
Wilton Park and the other training centres, in my opinion, are doing very useful work, not only with their political teaching, but with their lectures on history, too. It is very good to know how other nations have seen our historical development, as the history taught in German schools was one-sided, and' unpleasant chapters were simply omitted. That was the main reason that we have learnt nothing from the mistaken we made in the past. Our towns would not be shattered and our people not dying from starvation if we had learnt the lesson from the first world war, and if the German people would ,have been able to think for themselves. Hence it is very essential that as many people as possible should have a political and historical knowledge, and, above all, should be able to judge and to think for themselves in order to prevent such things from happening again of which consequences our people is
suffering from. at present.—Yours faithfully, HEINZ GALFE (P.o.W.): Nanscawn, St. Blazey, Par, Cornwall.
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