The Mid-Devon Advertiser is marking its 150th anniversary by looking back at events from our past. Perhaps the biggest single event to shape the Britain of today was the second world war. In March 1943, exactly 70 years ago, the people of Newton Abbot and surrounding communities were finding it tough, doing everything they could to buy 50 Spitfires as part of the Wings For Victory campaign. The Advertiser's pages were peppered with stories from the frontline alongside ministry ads offering housewives tips for eking out meagre rations. If life here was grim, however, it was unimaginably worse in occupied Poland. Four new gas chambers and crematoria were being put into action at Auschwitz-Birkanau, the mainspring of Hitler's 'final solution'. Last week, we visited the camp where 1.5 million people are thought to have died.