On the 3rd of October, two S6 students went on a reflective visit to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in the South of Poland. Joined by approximately 200 other visitors from Scotland, S6 R.E Vice Captains Carla Foley and Kate Hughes, had an emotional experience as they visited one of the most important sites of European history.
“I feel like dissociated would be the best way to describe how i felt, I just couldn’t comprehend this was where I was” explained Kate. She said she didn’t realise herself that this was where everything happened until she saw a ‘work makes you free’ sign while walking around. Kate also mentioned the tragic side of how the holocaust had a big impact on religion for Polish Jews as many synagogues were destroyed but never rebuilt. Oświęcim, the town near where Auschwitz is located, had a 50% Jewish population.
Kate and the community near Auschwitz urges people to talk about the severity of the genocide that occurred and to find some stories from individual survivors as it is “easier to connect to one person than 6 million.”
