North pupils see horrors of Auschwitz death camp

Nov 1 2008 by Sam Wood, The Journal

THE sheer scale of the death is hard to comprehend. Before the Second World War, the Polish town of Oswiecim had about 8,000 Jews in a vibrant community, 60% of the population.

By the time the war finished, there were less than half a dozen left. Near Oswiecim is the Nazi-built Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp where at least 1.5m people, mainly Jews, were murdered.

On Tuesday, 200 pupils from the North East travelled to Poland to visit the site and learn about the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime.

Run by the Holocaust Educational Trust, the trip involved pupils from all over the region, including Newcastle, North and South Shields, Gateshead, Sunderland and Northumberland.

David Anderson, 17, a pupil at St Cuthberts School in Benwell, Newcastle, said he found it hard to comprehend what happened in the camps. Im just speechless, the size of the camp is shocking, it stretches away for miles, it is impossible to process what happened here, he said.

The trip aimed to show that behind the numbers of dead were real people, who up to that point had led normal lives.

As well as Jews, homosexuals, criminals and Gypsies were all incarcerated or put to death in the camps after being transported by train.

Before they were killed, they had all their hair shaved off, gold teeth pulled out and their possessions where taken away and sent back to Germany.

The pupils spent the first part of the day travelling to the Auschwitz I concentration camp where prisoners of war were held. The camp, now a museum, has rooms which are piled high with shoes, hair, glasses, luggage and other possessions of those killed. Francesca Lovey, 17, of the Kings School, Tynemouth, said: It was the room full of the hair which was the worst thing for me.

The women had their hair shaved off before they were killed or sent to work and the hair was then turned into cloth. For most women, the hair is a symbol of their femininity and just to see it lying there discarded, its no longer part of a person any more and that really brings home the cruelty of the camps. We have heard a lot of numbers today and the idea that millions of people died here is difficult to comprehend. It is difficult to express without seeing the sheer scale of the place.

Danny Hamilton, 17, a pupil at St Cuthberts School in Benwell, Newcastle, said he felt physically sick after seeing some of the things that were done to the victims.

He said: It is the worst thing I have ever experienced, seeing what was done to these people. Just walking around the gas chambers really gets you. The fact that people would kill themselves on the electric fences rather than live in the camps just shows how bad condition must have been.

Devon Lee, 17, of Newcastle College, said: For me, the worst part was when we were told about the babies. The Nazis would take any babies who were born in the camps and drown them in a bucket in front of their mothers.

At the end of the trip, a service was held to remember those who suffered and died in the camps. Candles were lit and placed on the railway tracks which carried so many to their deaths.

Rabbi Barry Marcus, of Londons Central Synagogue, led the ceremony. He said: If we were to stand in silence for a minute for every victim who died in this camp, we would have to stand here for four years. We must never forget what happened.