On 10th November, Henry Grub and Niamh Herrett in Year 13 visited Poland on a one-day trip as part of the “Lessons from Auschwitz” programme they are taking part in, run by the Holocaust Educational Trust. Flying from Gatwick to Krakow, they firstly visited the town of Oświęcim, which had a large Jewish community pre-WWII. Here they visited a Jewish cemetery that was rebuilt after it was flattened during the Nazi occupation. This allowed them to compare the differences between the cemetery pre-war and post-war, given the significance of the place to the original Jewish population. After visiting Oświęcim, they moved onto Auschwitz I, where the museum’s main exhibitions are. They were given a guided tour of the site including the barracks  where the prisoners lived. They also saw one of the chambers and furnace.

After visiting the largely intact Auschwitz I,  Henry and Niamh moved onto Auschwitz II, better known as Birkenau, the infamous death camp. Birkenau was a huge site, but is now largely empty, as the Nazis demolished many of the buildings. Here, they visited the wooden and brick huts the victims would have lived in and got an idea of the conditions they were kept in. After walking down the railway tracks, they had a ceremony by candlelight by a London Rabbi, who spoke about the ethical issues facing the world today. The candles were then dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust and left on the railway tracks in the dark.

After a long day (delay at Krakow!) they landed at Gatwick around 1:30am the next day! It was a very educational experience and they will now conduct a “Next Steps” campaign in the school, aiming to disseminate their knowledge.