My Experience of the ‘Lessons from Auschwitz’ Trip 2025

By Sophia

On Wednesday 19th November, me and two other Year 12s were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the sites of both Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau in Krakow, Poland. I am sure many of you reading are aware of what Auschwitz is – perhaps the most notorious death camp established by the Nazis during WW2 of all. The site of the loss of approximately 1 million Jews. The site of the loss of so many vibrant, deserving lives.

We were chosen at random to take part in the ‘Lessons from Auschwitz’ programme, led by the ‘Holocaust Educational Trust’, and as a result attended an introductory seminar before our trip. During this seminar we heard the incredibly moving and compelling testimony of Holocaust survivor Eva Clarke, whose mother was a prisoner of three concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Rather amazingly, she herself was born at Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, after which she and her mother moved to Cardiff to begin a new life. We also studied pre-WW2 Jewish life and aimed to focus on its vibrancy and culture, in order to understand the humanity involved with such an unthinkable event in history.

Auschwitz consists of three camps: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II (Birkenau), and Auschwitz III (Monowitz). The trip was just one day, during which we passed through the town of Oświęcim where Auschwitz is located. What struck me about the town was its bleak and ominous beauty: it would have seemed like any other to the uneducated traveller, however with the knowledge that Auschwitz was just a few minutes away, a solemn shadow seemed to hang over its buildings. 

It was impossible to know what I would feel as we waited to enter both Auschwitz I and II: the thoughts of the inexplicably terrible acts that were committed at the site predictably induced a sense of fear inside of me. Would it immediately hit me? Would I walk through in such a sobering daze that it wouldn’t hit me at all? We first walked through a walled pathway at Auschwitz I, hearing the names of victims read out over the speakers. I recall it being an eerie moment – there I was, unable to comprehend or imagine what I was about to see, surrounded by towering white walls, feeling trapped… but knowing the people to whom those names belonged never escaped.

The gates at the entrance of Auschwitz I read “Arbeit Macht Frei” – translated into English as “Work makes one free.” A cruel, deceptive phrase the Nazis attached to a place where work did of course not set you free. I learnt at this moment that the Nazis in fact believed that slave labour was a way of ‘re-education’, but also punishment and a method of achieving a ‘racially pure’ Germany. While at this camp we were given the choice of seeing the gas chamber; whilst inside you couldn’t help but feel dread, and you were constantly aware, with a haunting knowledge, that this was where such unimaginable horrors happened.

After this, we passed through a dimmed white room where home movies of Jewish life before Nazi infiltration played, fading in and out simultaneously on each of the four walls. Children playing on the beach, large families gathering together for photographs, smiles on their faces; the overwhelming realisation that these people were unaware of their futures was incredibly moving. I would say this room is where it finally hit me: here were the lives that were entirely ruined, the lives that were hardly any different from the ones we live today.

The most famous image of Auschwitz however, is most probably the silhouette of Auschwitz II, with its train track and tower. As we arrived at this site, the sun was just beginning to set, painting a somewhat beautiful backdrop for its foreground of barbed wire fences and cold wooden structures. We walked the platform where prisoners were loaded from their cattle carts, and were shown photographs of these events occurring as we stood on the very same ground. It was incredibly powerful.

As the chill set in and the sky was pitch black, we were given a final opportunity to remember the lives lost during the Holocaust through poetry-reading, courtesy of the programme’s participants, and by lighting candles which we got to place at the end of the train track. During this, the two rabbis who had accompanied us on the trip sang, creating a poignant moment for all of us.

What have I taken away from the ‘Lessons from Auschwitz’ project? I wish I could say it simply, but in fact it is more complex. I’m considerably more educated on the Holocaust and ever since returning home I’ve been talking about my experience to friends, family members, and teachers, passing on the stories I heard. I will certainly never forget my trip to Auschwitz. A quote from an exhibition at Auschwitz I that I found particularly significant and also relevant to today’s society was: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I find this to conclude my personal takeaways from this trip perfectly: all humans should be educated on the Holocaust to ensure something so terrible never happens again.