Holocaust Remembrance Day 2018

The 27th January marks Holocaust Remembrance Day; a time to remember those who died or who have been affected by the Holocaust, Nazi persecution, and more recent genocides. Last term, myself and a fellow pupil from St George's College, Weybridge were invited to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp, along with other students from all around the UK.

Every year, the Holocaust Educational Trust organises a project called Lessons from Auschwitz, where selected students from each school embark on this project, which culminated in a day trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Trust held a series of seminars before we left for Auschwitz-Birkenau to begin the process of understanding the events of the Holocaust.  The introduction seminar included vital background knowledge and the testimony of Rudi Oppenheimer, a Holocaust survivor. To hear his life story and the impact the holocaust had on him and his family moved me. I was struck by how human the whole genocide was; realising that it affected not only the people who died, but those who survived too. This prompted me to realise some aims of the trip; to remember all those affected were individual human beings, and to increase my understandings of the contemporary relevance of the holocaust.

A week later, we were in Krakow, making our way to Oświęcim; a typical Polish town renamed ‘Auschwitz’ by the Nazis. We visited the once lavish and large ‘Great Synagogue’ which was a central meeting point for 40,000 Jewish people. I gathered a sense of community and Jewish life before the war, which contrasted to the environment of Auschwitz-Birkenau. After taking in the atmosphere of the town, we headed to Auschwitz I and Birkenau camps. In Auschwitz I, I was struck by a room full of empty suitcases. The names written on them personalised the victims of the Holocaust; all prisoners were stripped of belongings, individuality, and separated from their family and community.

The bleak, cold atmosphere at Birkenau stood out for me also, through sheer size and the number of duplicated barracks. Yet, our memorial service at the ruins of Crematoria II brought humanity and love to a place of despair and destruction. Readings of young prisoners’ poems and messages brought humanity, and emphasised people’s hope beyond Birkenau. On this note, we departed the camp and within a few hours, were on our flight back to London.  My fellow student commented:

“The whole day has been an emotional but essential visit… one that has impacted me greatly"

During our follow-up seminar, I realised that everyone involved in the Holocaust were human beings, even the perpetrators and bystanders. Also, that the six million who perished were individuals, an element which statistics do not capture.

We will be holding an assembly at school on the Holocaust and its relevance today, to provide an insight and build awareness within our school community. After all, persecution of minority groups is not an event of the past, but sadly is happening today across the globe.