Auschwitz-Birkenau Trip

On 29 April 2008, I joined local sixth-formers and teachers on their trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Hosted by the Holocaust Educational Trust, we travelled to Poland to see two of the three Auschwitz camps. Auschwitz I, with the chilling 'Arbeit Macht Frei' (work brings freedom) gates and Auschwitz II, on ten times the scale, at Birkenau. Here 700-1000 people were forced into unimaginably cramped and unsanitary conditions in buildings modelled on stables for less than 100 horses.  On the train tracks, which brought the cattle trucks loaded with people coming to almost certain death, and near to the remains of one of the crematoria, a candle-lighting service was held to remember the 6 million Jews, and the Roma, Sinti, gay, disabled, black people, and other victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

The visit was a unique opportunity to see what happened, to pay respect to those who lost their lives, and to explore the universal lessons of the Holocaust. Hitler's death camps came about because ordinary people were receptive to propaganda that dehumanised fellow human beings. This still happens today.

The most emotional part of the trip for me was seeing the registration documents of inmates, piles of hair, shoes, clothes and other items seized by the Nazis. These were people like you and me put through unspeakable suffering. I resolved to always remember just one of them, Stella Popper, whose name was on one of the empty suitcases.

We also visited the Jewish Cemetery at Oswiecim, the Polish town renamed Auschwitz after the Nazis invaded in September 1939.  

The cemetery was desecrated shortly after the Nazis invaded and many of the headstones were smashed up for use as tiles.  Some were preserved and have been re-erected, although with one exception they do not correspond with the bodies buried beneath them.  The exception is the tomb of Szymon Kluger, the last practicing Jewish person to live in Oswiecim, who died in the year 2000.

On their return, the students are required to give a presentation to their classmates, based on their experience of visiting Auschwitz and the lessons they have learnt. In this way, as many young people as possible benefit from the Lessons from Auschwitz Project. Government funding has enabled the Trust to facilitate regional visits to Auschwitz, as part of its Lessons from Auschwitz Project for thousands of students each year.

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