Unforgettable Aushwitz trip for sixth formers

St Katherine’s students Cathi Howe and Jasmie Mahesan were picked for an unforgettable trip to the sites of the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps in early March.

The trip was organised by The Holocaust Educational Trust through the Lessons from Auschwitz Project which aims to raise awareness of the Holocaust in schools.

Approximately 1.1million people were killed in the death camps – the vast majority were Jews who were stripped, shaved and sent to the gas chambers within minutes of their arrival.

The students’ guide showed them the piles of shoes, hair, clothes, photographs and suitcases which were taken from people destined to die and it really hit home that the belongings were of people with similar families living similar lives.

The Auschwitz museum puts into perspective just how many people were killed at the hands of the Nazis. Letters, poems, photos and other mementoes revealed inspiring stories of courage, faith and resilience in the face of awful atrocity and suffering.

The students also visited Birkenau – also known as Auschwitz Two – which is 25 times bigger than Auschwitz One and held more than 90,000 prisoners in 1944.

Cathi said: “We’ve learnt a lot about the Holocaust in school but you can’t prepare for anything like this. It’s been enlightening. It’s made me determined to spread the word that these were people, not just statistics, and they need to be respected and their legacy needs to live on. We need to remember the people and make sure what’s happened to them never happens again. No-one is in a better place to do that than the next generation.”