Auschwitz Trip

“Man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.” Viktor E. Frankl

On Wednesday 9th November, Miss Atkinson accompanied four A level historians Adam Lesbirel, Jake Cliff, Sarah Sullivan and Niamh Parry on a day trip to Poland. The trip was part of the Lessons from Auschwitz project run by the Holocaust Education Trust which allows the students to train and become Holocaust Ambassadors for the College. During the trip the students visited the town of Oswiecim, near Krakow, where they were able to visit Auschwitz concentration camp and memorial museum. The students were able to further develop their understanding of life for Jews in pre-war Poland as well as the horrors they faced at the hands of the Nazi regime during the Second World War. The focus of the day was to “humanise the victims and remember they were more than a number.”

Adam Lesbirel found the visit “humbling and educational. I thought I understood the horrors of the Holocaust but this trip has opened my eyes even further to really deepen my understanding of the scale of the atrocity.”

Niamh Parry said “this visit has really made me question how humans were able to treat other humans in the way the Nazis treated the Jewish people. I will be able to use this experience to further develop my understanding of the Holocaust”

The entire day was an extremely emotional and educational experience for all involved.

All four students will now continue their Lessons from Auschwitz project by meeting a Holocaust survivor, Kitty Hart-Moxon, and listen to her story of her time in Auschwitz.

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” Martin Niemöller