'Everyone should visit Auschwitz' (From Somerset County Gazette)

'Everyone should visit Auschwitz'

7:10pm Monday 27th October 2008 in News By Matt Warne

STUDENTS from Bishop Fox’s Community School, Taunton, have witnessed the effects of the Holocaust first hand with a visit the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

They also toured parts of nearby Krakow that were featured in the film Schindler’s List as part of a history trip.

Teacher Ray King said: “The visit aimed to give us a better understanding of the nature of the Holocaust, its causes and what each of us can do to prevent such horrors happening again.”

Following the visit to Auschwitz, student Michael Knight’s said: “The main thing about Auschwitz is that it affects different people in different ways, and that different things set off different people. For me it was the shoes.

“There were some shoes that looked as if they were very expensive and glamorous and I just thought it showed how everyone was affected by the Holocaust.”

Shannon Watts added: “The rooms of baby clothes, suitcases, hairbrushes and hair were really shocking.”

Josh Clements thought deeply about the Jews who suffered in Auschwitz. He said: “They starved, they were gassed, they were experimented on, kept prisoner, shot, used as labour, taken from their families. They were killed. In photos, you could see their bones. We walked around Auschwitz. We had warm clothes and food.”

Megan Strong added: “At first it doesn’t feel real but as you think more and more it sinks in more and then you realise it is real.”

In Krakow, the group stood at the steps where part of Schindler’s List was filmed and saw Schindler’s enamelware factory, where he was able to save the lives of over 1,000 Jews.

The factory is now being renovated, with part of it becoming a museum and part of it becoming a gallery for modern art.

The group visited the site of the Ghetto and learned of other heroes who helped the Jews, such as the pharmacist who used chloroform to ‘knock out’ babies so that they would not cry as he smuggled them out of the ghetto in his bag, so that they could live as the children of couples outside.

Eve Thorne said: “Knowing that my great grandfather was a Jew and could have died in Auschwitz as a young boy made it worse. I’m glad he didn’t or I wouldn’t be here.”

Rebecca Fox was moved because her great grandfather had been Mayor of Warsaw, and ended up in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

On returning to Taunton, Mr King said: “We felt we had taken part in the experience of a lifetime. What we had witnessed will remain with us, and especially the words of George Santayana – “The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again.”

Student Emma Pike said: “If people cannot visit Auschwitz, then we might forget what happened or imagine it wasn’t as bad as it was. Everyone should visit Auschwitz, to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”