Leaving Exeter airport at 5 a.m., pupils Zoe Noakes and Hannah Pryke, and teacher Lesley Clark, were just three of 226 sixth formers and teachers from across the South West to be invited to go on a visit to Auschwitz by the Holocaust Educational Trust.
Despite an orientation seminar prior to the trip, where both adults and teenagers were humbled to hear the testimony of a Jewish survivor, no amount of preparation could address the reality of the emotions experienced when confronted with the evidence of the depths to which human beings can go when prejudice and hatred motivate people’s behaviour.
The stillness of the camp, the railway tracks, fences and sentry posts assaulted the senses but it was the displays of piles of human hair, of babies' clothes and of artificial limbs which were the most heart-rending sight. The gas chamber, which countless people had innocently entered to take a “shower”, was truly awful.
The Birkenau site was the second destination and the sheer scale of it was awesome: row upon row of huts where people were cooped up and where lice and the typhus were rife. Sanitation was woefully inadequate and prisoners were huddled on bare wooden bunks at night with only rats for company. The tour of this site was interspersed with readings of survivors’ accounts of their experiences, making it so much more memorable. The full scale of this site could be appreciated from the famous watchtower over the entrance to the camp.
The tour ended with a very moving service at the memorial near the gas chambers. As the sun went down, the air chilled and the words of a Hebrew prayer rang out. Everyone then took a candle and walked in silence up the iconic railway tracks, overwhelmed with thoughts on how anyone could do this to men, women and children whose only crime was to be either Jewish, Romany, disabled, homosexual or a political opponent.
The sad fact is that it still happens today around the world and that is why these visits must continue so that young people can be ambassadors for tolerance.
A truly memorable experience.
