Order My Book

Order My Book

If you would like to order my book about the London to Auschwitz Cycle – please email me at robert.desmond@dezco.co.uk with your address and I will let you know where to send a donation, in return I will send you a signed copy personally! Alternatively you can read the full contents of the book on this blog. I have also started blogging more on medium if you would like to check out some more posts: https://medium.com/@dezzydesmond eg My Ride for the…

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Robots are coming, and they will take over quickly: Exponential Growth

Robots are coming, and they will take over quickly: Exponential Growth

Exponential Growth Exponential Growth is a rather dull title, but the implications are incredibly important. A good analogy is to imagine filling a large lake. Every year you put in some water. The first year you put in just 1 drop of water. For every subsequent year you double the amount that you put in last time… e.g. year 2 will be 2 drops year 3 will be 4 drops year 4 will be 8 drops …etc… It will take…

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Ride for the Living 2017 – Speech at Auschwitz-Birkenau by Robert Desmond

Ride for the Living 2017 – Speech at Auschwitz-Birkenau by Robert Desmond

My name is Robert Desmond and 6 years ago I cycled from London to Auschwitz to teach my friends and the world more about The Holocaust. On joining the JCC in Krakow, I was inspired and overwhelmed by the community’s spirit and realised that my bike ride should not end in such a depressing place, but somewhere positive, as the story of the Jewish people does not finish in Auschwitz. I am now a keen advocate of Holocaust education and…

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Programming Course: W3Schools

Programming Course: W3Schools

Everyone these days seems to want to become a software developer and has been asking me for tips on how to get involved. Now most people don’t actually want to change professions, but would rather just have a bit more domain knowledge so they can’t get bulls***ted about by developers.   Everything on the web is free and available I wouldn’t pay for a course. If you get stuck, Stack Overflow is the place you will end up – where…

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Story Terrace: Create your Family Biography to Keep Forever

Story Terrace: Create your Family Biography to Keep Forever

Unfortunately all of my grandparents have now passed away; and for each one there are many lost memories. There are stories that we can remember small details of, and then there are meaningful events that we don’t even know we have lost. Over time, the stories we do have fade. I remember a bit of my grandpa Harry’s life, I remember distinctly some lessons on how to deal with the monotony of school but there are so many things I wish…

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Ride for the Living 2016

Ride for the Living 2016

This is the speech that I gave at the opening ceremony from Ride for the Living 2016 in front of the 150 participants: Firstly, let me start off by expressing how important it is to me that through this Ride for the Living initiative, hundreds of people have come here to learn about the horrors of the past. My first visit here made me want to tell the world. I felt an innate desire, that I haven’t felt anywhere else,…

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3 Things To Think About For Holocaust Memorial Day

3 Things To Think About For Holocaust Memorial Day

For this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day, a dear friend of mine, Jonathan Ornstein, the Director of the Jewish Community Centre in Krakow, and I are going to walk the (relatively) short 65km (40 miles) from Auschwitz to the Jewish Community Centre in Krakow. January 27th is the date that Auschwitz was liberated and a day that we mark to remember the victims of The Holocaust. On this day in 1945, the surviving prisoners could finally leave the confines of the…

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Norwood Trek 2015: Sudetes

Norwood Trek 2015: Sudetes

I was standing in a group of 40 in the mountains on the Polish-Czech border. We were saying the prayers to bring in the day of rest in the Jewish calendar, Shabbat, but the group was only about 50% Jewish. There were Muslims and Christians and a Hindu, not just from London, but from Ireland, Latvia, Czech Republic, Israel, Malta, the United States and Poland too. Ian Fagelson, who inspired the event, introduced the Jewish traditions by talking about the…

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Ride for the Living 2015

Ride for the Living 2015

Marcel Zielinski, his son Betzalel, and two granddaughters, Tamar and Chen, and I cycled side by side along the River Vistula just as the sun was setting, we were finally coming into Krakow after a long day cycling. Together with 80 others taking part in this ride. 70 years ago, after being liberated by the Russian Army, Marcel was completing the same journey, on foot, still in his prisoner uniform from Auschwitz-Birkenau back to his home town of Krakow. Marcel was…

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