Students from schools and colleges in Hounslow were among 200 pupils who visited the former Nazi Germany concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Poland.
Joining pupils from Gunnersbury Catholic School; Isleworth and Syon school; Chiswick School and The Heathland School was MP for Brentford and Isleworth Ruth Cadbury .
The trip was part of the government funded Holocaust Educational Trust’s, lessons from Auschwitz project, which provides a “hearing is not like seeing” experience.
During the trip to the former Nazi death camp on Thursday (February 4), the group visited Oświęcim, the town where the Nazi concentration and death camp was located and where, before the war, 58% of the population was Jewish.
They also went to Auschwitz I to see the former camp’s barracks and crematoria where they witnessed piles of people’s personal belongings seized by the Nazis, before moving onto Birkenau, for a candle lighting in remembrance of the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust.
Ms Cadbury said: “It is difficult to comprehend the enormity of a project that in one town, over four years, around 1.3m men, women and children, 90% of whom were Jewish, were systematically executed.
“Seeing the camps at Auschwitz and neighbouring Birkenau hits home the human side of this state organised genocide.
“We saw the shoes, the children’s clothes and suitcases that families brought with them thinking they were to start a new life. Instead, all but the healthiest men were sent straight to the gas chambers within hours of arriving on trains that had travelled from the four corners of Europe.
“The visit not only reminded us all of the horror of the Nazis “final solution” but also reinforced our commitment to do what we can to ensure such genocide can never happen again.”
The four part project also includes students going along to a seminar, on Jewish life in Europe before the Second World War and hearing from a Holocaust survivor; a second seminar on their return to reflect and discuss their visit; and finally all students must pass on what they have learned in their schools and wider community.
On completing the project students become ambassadors for the Holocaust Educational Trust, and are supported by the Trust’s Ambassador Programme.
Karen Pollock MBE, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, added: “The Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz Project is such a vital part of our work because it allows young people to learn about the Holocaust in a way they cannot in the classroom.
“The Holocaust was a defining episode in history, and this visit enables young people to see for themselves where racism, prejudice and antisemitism can ultimately lead.”
