Never again
Reading When the Liberators Came (February) I was transported back to my visit to
Shaving brushes taken from prisoners at the AuschwitzBirkenau concentration and extermination camp
Auschwitz-Birkenau last year with a group of A-Level students. Through studying history over many years, I have seen photos, watched documentaries and read books of first-hand accounts of experiences in the camp. But nothing prepares you for a visit. The victims’ shoes, hair, glasses and named suitcases on display bring to life as individuals the 1.1 million people who died in this camp alone.
Birkenau, where the gas chambers were situated, stretches for as far as the eye can see. The train line and watchtower buildings so familiar, but now bringing to life the fear the people arriving at the camp must have felt.
Later in the trip we met Bernard Offen, a Holocaust survivor. His story of enduring the Kraków Ghetto and several camps was distressing, particularly when it is multiplied by millions of people who did not survive to tell their stories. But for me it was when Bernard rolled his sleeve back to reveal his tattoo number from Auschwitz, B-7815, that I could hold back the tears no more.
We must remember the Holocaust, learn the lessons and ensure it is never repeated. The scale of the tragedy sometimes means we forget how it started on the streets in the form of anti-Semitism. We must not be blind to the persecution, racism and violence that is being enacted across the world today, including in our own country.
Pauline Vickers, Wrexham