IN 1951, as Secretary of the Kings Norton Peace Committee in Birmingham, I visited Poland as part of a national delegation from the British Peace Committee.

Our aims at that time were to try and bring the five great powers, Britain, France, China, Russia and America to sign a pact agreeing to settle all the world's problems in a peaceful way.

Needless to say, the Labour Party heirarchy labelled us all Communists and proscribed the organisation.

It was as a result of my activities that I was invited to go on the Polish trip.

Apart from the massive destruction caused by the war in Polish cities, and the determined fashion in which the people were setting about rebuilding their land, the greatest impression was made on me by our visit to Auschwitz.

The Nazi policy of punishing a whole people because of what they regarded as the criminal acts of a few, seemed to me, as it did to the rest of the world at that time, no way in which to solve the problem.

Tony Blair and Mr Bush have changed their minds about such problems now.

By their support for indiscriminate bombing in Afghanistan they have given the green light to Mr Sharon to set about destroying the whole Palestinian people in the name of an anti-terrorist war.

I sincerely hope that the millions of good Jewish people around the world will act in time to stop this madman.

JOHN BRANSON,

Claines, Worcester.