TWO STUDENTS from a Newquay school visited the Auschwitz concentration camp as part of a history programme to ensure its horrors are never forgotten.
Jess Ridgment and Toby Anderson Jones, of Newquay Tretherras Academy, travelled to Poland on March 7 to take part in lectures and guided tours about the victims of the Holocaust.
They were accompanied by Ziggy Shipper, a Polish Jew who managed to survive the persecution by the Nazis between 1939 and 1944.
Around six million of the nine million Jews living in Europe were killed in the genocide. Of these, more than a million were children and around two million were women.
A network of over 40,000 facilities in Germany and German-occupied territory were used to hold and kill Jews and other victims. It is thought about 1.3 million people died in the camps that made up Auschwitz.
Mr Shipper took the young students to the nearby town's Jewish cemetery and told them about his experience in the camp, and his life afterwards.
Jess and Toby said they were surprised at how "normal" the barracks looked, but were also shocked at how small they were. Each held around 1,000 people.
Toby said: "The most harrowing part of Auschwitz was Block 11 or Death Block as the prisoners called it. Inside there were sealed rooms each with a different purpose including the suffocation rooms. It was truly awful to see, and more than anything it was shocking to believe that humans could treat other humans so horribly."
The incomprehensible size of Auschwitz-Birkenau – the extermination camp – struck both students as they viewed it from the watchtower at the main gate.
Jess said: "We had no idea it was that big. We also learnt about the selection process; on the train platforms, doctors would examine prisoners and ask them for their age. Children under 14, women, the elderly and the infirm would immediately be sent to the gas chambers.
"It was deeply moving and really opened our eyes to the true horrors of the war. It was a truly humbling experience."
