We managed to talk to Alex Waugh and Molly Bryson who were the two pupils that went to Poland for this trip along with roughly 100 other pupils from multiple different schools. The trip was on the 13th of October and only lasted for the duration of 24 hours.
The first place that they had went to The Seminar and took roughly 6 hours as Alex had said “We weren’t just learning about the numbers involved in the holocaust we were actually learning about the personal lives behind the people that had died.” Once they had arrived in Auschwitz the realisation and emotions had kicked in, In Alex’s words; “Seeing the total scale of devastation it was something that I don’t think I was prepared for at the time and is still quite overwhelming to think about it.”
This experience had shocked both of our fellow classmates and indeed set a new aspect of perception. Molly commented “I thought that it would really out of the way and there wouldn’t be much round about it but there were restaurants and houses right across the road.” As they had entered the gates they would have the victims and their families in mind and respecting the surroundings present. Molly’s thoughts in this situation were “I thought a lot about trying to put myself into their shoes and think about exactly what must have been going through their minds as well.” Overall both students really appreciated and learned from this once in a life time school experience.
Well done Ria.