Students face horrors of history at Auschwitz

Organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust, the teenagers spent a day at the site and prepared work for a follow-up seminar afterwards. Among them was Warwickshire College student Katie Westerby who here gives a report for the Courier on her experiences.

THE Holocaust: the extermination of millions of European Jews, Roma, Slavs, intellectuals, homosexuals and political dissidents by the Nazis and their allies during World War II. Its definition is just as chilling as the act itself.

Last month I was given the chance to go to Poland and to see Auschwitz for myself.

One of the main lessons I learnt was that death counts correspond to real people like you and me. It could have been anyone. It could have been us.

Standing under the gates of Auschwitz 1, reading the sign ‘Arbeit macht frei’ (work will set you free), seemed surreal. I had seen it so many times in my head from films, books and documentaries.

We proceeded into a block in which remained the possessions of prisoners which were found after the camp was liberated.

Large quantities of items were all preserved behind thick glass in dark rooms, including thousands of glasses, shoes, suitcases, hairbrushes - the list seemed infinite. Reality slowly started seeping into my mind - those shoes and that suitcase had all had owners.

The most significant place I visited was the gas chamber. To stand in a spot where so many people died made everything seem very real for me. I was aware of the numbers and the sheer extent of genocide, I knew about the punishments and the methods of killing, yet at the same time I wasn’t aware of anything.

Leaving the camp and walking back along the railway line at Auschwitz was almost a right of passage. I was going home and returning somewhere safe, but millions who stood on that railway line never returned home.

The Holocaust came to life for me. It’s important that it’s never forgotten and we continue to remember not just the numbers but the lives of the people who died.

It was an experience that I will never forget, and something which I strongly believe more people should consider taking.