Principal Teacher of Social Subjects, Linda Letham, and 6th year pupils, Calum McCall and Laura McGhee, visited the death camps at Auschwitz recently as part of an awareness raising exercise with The Holocaust Educational Trust.
Click on the comments to read some of their thoughts on the experience.
October 12, 2007 at 9:13 am
I have taught the Holocaust for 20 years, and knew all the facts about the events. Even this did not prepare me for what we experienced. I was amazed at the size and scale of the death camps – it took over 2 hours to walk around Auschwitz-Birkenau. Many of the exhibits were disturbing and the one that stands out for me was the 2 tonnes of human hair. This part of history should never be forgotten and the lessons from Auschwitz should be a reminder to us today of the dangers of prejudice and racism. Most people who died in the camps were selected simply because of their race and religious beliefs.
October 12, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Before we went to Auschwitz we attended a seminar to try and prepare us for the experience, at this we were shown photos and spoke to a Holocaust survivor. But when we arrived at the camp itself we experienced something which cannot be conveyed through photos or stories. The atmosphere alone in the camp is horrifying, although it is surrounded by trees no birds sing or make any noise at all. The enormous size and dreadful conditions of the camp brought home the reality of what had taken place within the walls of the camp. Although we saw many of the prisoners belongings such as their shoes, toothbrushes and suitcases at Auschwitz I, when I saw the thousands of photographs, which had been collected from the camp, showing only some of the people who had been cruelly murdered, the whole experience became so real to me. To see the genuine smiles of ordinary and innocent people, knowing that they were all stripped of their humanity and became just another figure in the millions that perished, is a truly harrowing experience.
October 29, 2007 at 12:06 pm
It was definitely a long day. There was a seemingly never ending supply of gruesome details which got worse as the day went on. The scale of the killing is overpowering, I had no idea of just how big Auschwitz-Birkenau was. Auschwitz I with its ‘exhibits’ was undoubtedly one of the more horrible parts of the day with it’s cases full of shoes, human hair and various other personal items taken from the corpses in the gas chambers. Personally, the courtroom where people were sentenced to death for breaking camp rules was the most chilling. It contained a long wooden table with a row of five chairs along one side and one single chair on the other. The thought of the thousands of people that sat there, alone, knowing their death sentence was minutes away when they would be led the 20 metres or so into the courtyard behind the block and shot was very moving. Overall although it was a tough day I was more than glad to give up some the comforts I enjoy today to appreciate what the victims of Auschwitz had to go through.