Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Our chilling day out
Advertiser editor Graham Miller joined Monklands pupils on visit to the former Nazi death camp
“Evil destroys. So good must build things back up again.”
This message of hope and optimism was delivered by charismatic Glasgow-born Rabbi, Andrew Shaw, as we stood, on a beautiful autumnal morning at the site of the former Great Synagogue of Oswiecim, the Polish town whose German translation became a byword for the horrors of the Holocaust – Auschwitz.
Rabbi Shaw’s brief but moving history lesson on the brutal Nazi regime’s destruction of the sacred place of worship for more than 8000 Jews in 1939 set the scene for an extraordinary day that brought forward a gamut of emotions, from incomprehension and consternation to, ultimately, reflection, as more than 200 sixth-year students participated in a trip hosted by the Holocaust Educational Trust.
The Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz project has for 17 years now brought together pupils from across the country to visit the extermination camp of AuschwitzBirkenau and pass their experience on to friends and family when they return home.
Included in the contingent of 80 schools who set off from Glasgow for Krakow at 7am were several pupils from the Monklands secondary schools of St Margaret’s, Caldervale, St Ambrose and St Andrew’s.
The infamous Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz- Birkenau was the place 1.1million souls – one million of whom were Jewish – perished during World War II.
At the site where the Great Synagogue had proudly stood, Rabbi Shaw explained that in a town that thousands of Jews once called home and led normal peaceful lives in, none now remained, causing him to muse that, on some level at least, the Nazis had won.
It was a sobering introduction to the revelations we would struggle with as our day in Poland unfolded.
After learning about the destruction of the Great Synagogue, our group made its way to Auschwitz I, a former Polish barracks which was converted into a death camp, to where around 1.3million people were deported.
The overwhelming majority of these men, women and children were systematically murdered.
The camp is now a museum that welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
And as we walked around the perfectly symmetrical red brick buildings in the lunchtime sun, we learned about the appalling conditions the hundreds of thousands who were forced to come here less than 75 years ago faced.
Overcrowding, famine, disease; the final days, weeks and months of the countless victims who perished here must have been hell on earth. These buildings no longer house people but instead their belongings, their clothes and, particularly disturbingly, even their hair, displayed as a reminder of what they endured.
More than a million people, including Jews from countries such as Greece and Hungary, were shipped here – many under the false pretence of a better life.
They packed their suitcases, believing there would be jobs for them at the end of the lengthy train journey.
Some even carried their house keys,hoping that one day, when the conflict ended and normality returned, that they would somehow get back home.
Instead, their lives came to a brutal and premature end – the victims of torture, firing squads and gas chambers.
Others who perished at Auschwitz included gypsies, political prisoners, alleged homosexuals, Polish freedom fighters and Russian prisoners of war.
Now their worldly belongings lie for all to see in the museum at Auschwitz I – one of the first Nazi concentration camps to be built in Poland.
After touring Auschwitz I, we headed to Auschwitz-Birkenau, some three kilometres away and the largest of the death camps.
The visit began with a tour of the vast camp, walking down the