It is now widely accepted that 1.3 million people (the majority Jews) died across Auschwitz.
And walking around a building at Birkenau where prisoners (the ones ‘fortunate’ enough not to be gassed) were forced to go to place their bags, get showered and collect their prison uniforms is the last place you would expect to find any semblance of happiness. The last room you visit though while walking around this building features an exhibition of photographs. After the camps were liberated by Soviet forces in January 1945 a suitcase was found packed with around 2,500 family photographs. Wedding photos. Baby snaps. Pictures of smiling families enjoying time together. Information found on the back of some of the photos has been used to detail who they were and what they did before the war. As sad as that is it shows that these ordinary people had lives, happy lives, before their persecution and in may cases, eventual extermination. Memories which no doubt helped them in their hours of need.
The tour finished with a memorial ceremony led by Rabbi Barry Marcus. “If we were to hold a minute’s silence for every victim of the Holocaust we would be stood here for nearly three years,” he tells us.
You spend all day trying to imagine what these people went through. It’s impossible. What’s not impossible is to remember what these people went through. Never forget.
• Personally, I cannot speak highly enough of everybody I have met associated with the Holocaust Education Trust. The Lessons From Auschwitz Project is not only an educational experience, it is a life-changing one.
Please visit {http://www.het.org.uk|www.het.org.uk} and take a look for yourself.