England footballers to visit Auschwitz at Euros

England's footballers will visit the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in southern Poland as well as Oskar Schindler's factory in Krakow during Euro 2012, the Football Association (FA) confirmed Tuesday. The visit to both historic sites are part of a new partnership between the FA and the Holocaust Educational Trust which will aim to produce a resource for all secondary schools and colleges in England. As part of the tie-up, England's players will also meet Holocaust survivors Zigi Shipper and Ben Helfgott this week before they travel to Poland on June 6, an FA statement said. Shipper was liberated from Auschwitz in 1945 while Helfgott survived the Buchenwald death camp before eventually settling in Britain and finding fame with his adopted homeland as a weightlifter at the 1956 and 1960 Olympics. England will visit Auschwitz prior to their opening match against France in Donetsk, Ukraine on June 11. "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," FA chairman David Bernstein said.