'Poignant' England soccer stars 'humbled' by Auschwitz pain and misery

London, June 9(ANI): Seven players from England squad along with manager Roy Hodgson, Football Association chairman David Bernstein, and former Aston Villa manager Avram Grant were left humbled when they visited Auschwitz, and promised to never forget the pain and misery of thousands of innocent people who were brutally slaughtered there by the Nazis.

Striker Wayne Rooney along with teammates Andy Carroll, Phil Jagielka, Jack Butland, Joe Hart, Theo Walcott and Leighton Baines visited the Auschwitz Museum, and paid their homage to the thousands of departed souls.

"I'm a parent and it's tough to see what happened there. You've seen the amount of children who died. You see the children's clothes and shoes, it's really sad. You have to see it first hand," The Telegraph quoted Rooney, as saying.

"What happened here puts football into perspective. It's good for us to try to understand this history," he added.

"I did history at school but never really appreciated it at the time, so I wanted to understand more about what happened in the War. I watched the documentary The World. At War last year, the night before away matches in Europe, and a lot of it is about what," he said.

An emotional Rooney further added: "You don't realise how those who lived there to work managed without food, without water. It's a form of torture and then they died. The others got murdered." (ANI)