In the footsteps of Oscar Schindler

Late on Wednesday 21st March a group of students from Years 10 to 13, together with Mrs Vaughan and Mrs Cross set out on an overnight coach to Stansted airport to catch an early morning flight to Krakow, Poland.

The first day’s visits took us to a number of sites featured in the book and film Schindler’s List included a visit to the Jewish museum, a tour of the former Jewish ghetto in the Kasimierz District and the site of the infamous and brutal Plaszow Labour Camp. By the end of a very long, but extremely interesting day, we were glad to get to back to our hotel for the first sleep in 48 hours.

The next morning we set out again for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp about an hour’s drive from Krakow. Mrs Vaughan had prepared us well for this visit, yet it was still very difficult to see some of the pictures and museum exhibits and to imagine the plight of the million plus men, women and children who lost their lives there.

At the enormous Birkenau camp we saw for ourselves the cold, damp barracks where the prisoners slept and the foul, humiliating latrines they were forced to use. We learned about the meagre rations on which they had to work 12 hours per day and saw the chilling remains of the gas chambers where so many lost their lives. Yet, still it was hard to comprehend the depths of the suffering that occurred here. As we stood at the Auschwitz memorial last Friday, it was bitterly cold and miserable in the wind, rain and mud - but not one of us complained! In fact we vowed we would never complain again!

Our final morning in Krakow was spent shopping in the beautiful town centre, then it was back to the airport for the long journey home. Our time in Poland, had been brief, but we left, feeling that we had experienced something very important that we would remember for the rest of our lives.