Enid Akuffo

My Holocaust Experience

On March 28th, through the Holocaust Education Trust ( A charity which aims to educate and inform people of today about events of the Holocaust) I was given the chance to visit Auschwitz, in Poland. I had never been and I was very excited at the prospect of travelling to Poland and back in one day. I was with another student from year 13 (at the time) and our visit to Auschwitz was step 2 of a 4 step programme. When visiting Auschwitz I expected to be emotional and see some sad things, but nothing could have prepared me for how deep and meaningful the trip would become.

Our visit to the only Jewish Cemetery in Oswiecim

Before our visit to Auschwitz 1 we visited this cemetery in Oswiecim. It is the only Jewish cemetery in the town. The cracked tomb stones and lack of care made me realise how even today some areas in Poland held little regard to the Jewish community. Some people even vandalised the cemetery. This made me very sad and angry as people still held these out dated views of Jews and still disrespected them even in their graves.Our visit to this cemetery made me realise the extreme effect that the Holocaust still has on our current society.

My experience at Auschwitz 1Out of the whole experience our visit to Auschwitz struck the most emotion in me. It may have been the weather, but from the start of our Auschwitz tour there was a dismal and gloomy feeling in the atmosphere. We were shown where some of the prisoners had to sleep and an acid chamber. Even though I can never image what the victims of the Holocaust felt we were given an insight into what they experienced on a daily basis. I sympathised so much with these people and I was very angry in the sense that innocent people were treated brutally because they were different.One of the most memorable things I saw at Auschwitz 1 was the large collection of hair. And to be told that the hair we saw was less than 20% of what was actually taken made me feel extremely shaken. It brought to reality the scale of the Holocaust. Further seeing the braids of the little girls horrified me, I was ashamed at the fact that there were people out there willing to do such terrible things to little vulnerable children. However my trip to Auschwitz 1 did bring about some good as it allowed me to appreciate what we have now. It also made me value freedom and how we take it for granted.