Visiting Auschwitz - The John Roan School

Visiting Auschwitz
with the Holocaust Educational Trust
The word Auschwitz conjures bleak, haunting and grey
images. These words were also suggested at the preparation
seminar for our trip to, arguably, the most dreadful site of
human brutality ever witnessed. On 26th of April we, along
with approximately 200 sixth form students from South East
London, visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland. It was far from
what we expected.
At the preparation seminar we heard from Auschwitz
survivor Susan Pollack. Her willpower in the unbearable
circumstances she faced was astounding. As she grew up in
Hungary, Pollack felt she was a German citizen through and
through. Not expecting the horrors that awaited her, Pollack
packed a heavy sewing machine to take for her future life
at Birkenau. Yet instead she was to face having her mother
torn away from her on arrival (later being told she had been
taken straight to the gas chambers); facing the rigorous
selection of the notorious Doctor Mengele; daily painstaking
slave labour; and towards the end, a death march to Belsen.
It was an insight that helped to humanise the degrading
process that was the extermination of six million Jews in
Hitler’s mad pursuit of an ideal race.
On the day, contrary to our expectations, we arrived to clear
blue skies and 26-degree heat. We first visited the only
remaining synagogue in Auschwitz where Rabbi Marcus,
who heads the Central Synagogue in London and initiated
the one-day visits to Auschwitz, talked to us about what it
was to be a Jew. We then visited Auschwitz I.
We pulled into a car park full of coaches like ours and groups
of people milling about. It was bizarre. I suppose we were
not expecting Auschwitz to feel that much like a tourist site.
Our tour guide led us through the entrance to the prison,
under the sign ‘work makes you free’, and past the small
plot of land where a band used to play as the prisoners
went to work every day. Coupled with the clear blue sky and
carefully planted trees, this propaganda felt all too close to
home. Our tour guide led us around the barracks and the
rooms that contained huge glass cases of shoes, suitcases,
glasses and artificial limbs that the prisoners had probably
gained from fighting in the First World War for Germany. The
room of hair, personally, gave the whole process humanity.
Tonnes upon tonnes of human hair, with the occasional small
blonde plait with a ribbon tied around it, were shocking, to
say the least. When we were taken into the gas chamber,
the sudden change in temperature only reinforced the
surreal feeling of walking into a concrete room, like so many
before, but being able to walk out again. The family home of
the camp’s commander, Rudolf Hoess, was clearly visible
from the gas chamber. He was a family man and wanted
his family close to his work. He was a human. And yet a
two-minute walk away from his garden, people walked into
their death.
At Auschwitz II it was evident that this was an industrial
process of mass extermination. The huge landscape of
Auschwitz II was still being expanded days before the
prisoners were freed. The barracks were uniform; dark,
boiling in the summer and freezing in the winter. A small
exhibition in the building where the Jews that were chosen
to work were shaved and given their striped pyjamas was
important I feel in this experience. The people who unpacked
the Jews’ suitcases managed to keep photographs that
people had brought with them, and since then the people
in the photographs have been tracked and their personal
histories discovered. This has given back some humanity to
this industrial process, a face to each Jew, exactly what the
Nazis fought to stop.
As our day neared the end, the group gathered together for
a memorial service. Daniel and four other students on the
trip read poems reflecting on the Holocaust, before Rabbi
Marcus spoke and sang passionately about the trials of
those who were persecuted there. His words, a mixture
of anger and despair, were undoubtedly a reflection of the
feelings of every student on the trip. He said: ‘If we were to
have a minute of silence for everyone that died in this camp
alone, we would have to remain silent for three whole years.’
Walking along the length of the track to the camp’s entrance
as we left, it was noticeable how many decided to walk
alone. For most of us, this was the first chance to reflect on
a day that was both physically and emotionally exhausting.
Even now it is hard to describe the surreal and conflicting
feelings felt as we left: sheer relief to have a moment’s
respite mixed with an urge to take action; a combination
of gloom towards humans because of their actions there,
and hope when considering the efforts of those running the
programme; an unrelenting feeling of dread at the sight of
the recognisable Birkenau gate and track, mixed with shame
for involuntarily appreciating its beauty as the sun set over
it and we placed candles along the track. Already I was
considering how I could possibly describe the experience
to friends and family when I returned – there was so much
to say, and yet at the same time every possible platituderidden
description seemed futile in conveying my feelings.
Walking back, I wondered if they would smile when they saw
the sun, heard the birds singing. We cannot ever expect to
truly understand what the six million people that died here
went through, or what the survivors struggled through either.
I believe I naively expected some kind of ‘revelation’ during
the visit: a point where I would suddenly understand the
feelings of the six million who died in the camps, those who
worked there, those who lived near them and even those
who initiated them. Yet all I was really left with was a feeling
of emptiness and confusion. In some ways I believed
I had ‘failed’ to grasp what I was expected to, that I was
undeserving. However, the follow-up seminar a few days
after revealed that most felt the same. It became apparent
to most of us that six million deaths remain such an elusive
figure purely because they are six million deaths. What we
took from the trip was not a conclusion per se, but the desire
to continue to understand and the motivation to carry out
our ‘next steps’ project – taking the lessons we have learnt
from Auschwitz to tackle the problems of discrimination and
persecution today.
Daniel Morris and Maria Ashworth. Year 13