On Wednesday 21st April, we were fortunate enough to travel to Oswiecim in Poland in order to visit Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp where we learned more about the Holocaust. We were given this task in the hope that we would be able to teach our peers more about the horrible events that transpired during the Second World War and the lesson that we will learn from it.
This article was written by Zoe and Hasan in 6F
The first visit was to the town of Oswiecim, where we saw a deserted synagogue, long out of use – a chilling reminder of the partial success the Nazis had in eradicating Judaism in Europe. Once at the camps, we visited parts of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex and the various rooms the Nazis used to achieve their aims.
One of these rooms held a mountain of hair, shaved from the heads of the many Jews – each clump representing an individual, murdered by the Nazis. It was a striking visual representation of how many people were sent to these camps, stripped of their dignity, and lost their lives. While at Auschwitz we also visited the infamous gas chambers, a landmark of mass murder.
It is easy to describe what we saw, and certainly much harder to understand how the victims of the Nazi regime felt. Our trip can be summarised by passing on a message to future generations: learn from history. Mass hatred and peer pressure can lead to the holocaust. Will it happen again? It is happening. It is our duty as the future generation to prevent this, but can only be achieved if we learn from the dangers of discrimination, segregation and allowing racist regimes to flourish.