50 junior high school students are on a journey to concentration camps in Poland and Germany. On their way to a confrontation with history. A history that, directly or indirectly, affects us all — at least it should. The story of how one man’s fantasies and ambitions of world domination led most of a nation to support the attempt to eliminate an entire people.

50 young people on a school-trip, on their way to an experience they will never forget.

The journey went to Poland and Germany, and the goals were the concentration camps of Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz and Auschwitz II - Birkenau. The trip was arranged by "The Foundation White Buses to Auschwitz". During the entire trip a so-called "time witness" accompanied us: A Polish Jew who was a prisoner in a German concentration camp during the war and moved to Norway when peace came in 1945.

We will tell you about our experiences and thoughts on this trip. Our reactions to what we saw and learned on our way and how we reacted to the encounter with the camps. This is in no way a work of research. It is an attempt to describe how persons - born 40 years afterwards - experienced a visit in these concentration camps. Of course, we have tried to keep to the correct facts in what we have written, and have combined and compared this with what we saw. Hopefully, this can give a slightly different perspective on the tragedy, which took place there during the war, and why it is so important to learn from history to prevent it from being repeated.

The first encounter with the camps
Our first encounter with the concentration camps was filled with excitement and horror: Excitement because - although having read quite a lot - we had little, if any concrete, knowledge about what was awaiting us. Horror because everything we would see and experience would tell a story so cruel and so terrible that it is almost impossible to communicate to others.

As fifteen-year-olds we had of course learnt about both the war and the concentration camps. We had learnt that the Nazis killed about six million Jews and hundred of thousands of gypsies and people from inferior groups, and that prisoners were put in forced labour camps in Poland and Germany. But we were absolutely not aware of the fact that human beings were able to take their atrocity to such extremes: That they could deprive from these human beings all reasons for life, terrorise and degrade them, crush their feelings and ridicule them, and so, extinguish all self-confidence and identity and at last the last spark of life they had left. For this was really hell on earth…

The truth
This was the truth. This was what we had come to learn - and we did learn - indeed! A visit to four concentration- and extermination camps where a total of somewhere between 1,5 and 4,5 million people were tortured and killed, is not something you just forget. It is an experience and a learning you bring along. In many ways it becomes a point of reference for experiences later in life.

For anyone, a visit to a concentration camp is a tough experience - especially so when you are just fifteen years old. One is confronted with so much pain and cruelty that it’s not possible to forget it afterwards. You can sit at home reading a book, and learn that millions of Jews were gassed to death and cremated in the extermination camps, and then you may think that "Okay, I have to remember that". But if you are standing in Birkenau, looking down into the ruins of the crematoria and gas chambers while you get the same information from the guide, then something much more is attached to the enormous numbers of victims. You can almost imagine the expression in the prisoners’ faces when they realize what awaits them. You are close to hearing their desperate screams for help down there from the ruins. Everything is so empty, so grey and so cold. The sound of the prisoners walking from the undressing room to the gas chambers, is still echoing throughout the entire camp. It’s a very long time since 50 fifteen-year-olds on a school trip have been so silent.

What we saw
Passing through the enormous iron gate with the writing "Arbeit Macht Frei" (work makes free) marking the entrance to "Konzentrationslager Auschwitz", it was like everyone suddenly became aware of where they were and what had happened here. We could almost see the camp orchestra in front of us when the guide told it playing when the prisoners marched out through the gate in the morning and back again in the evening. We sympathized with the prisoners, who had all their belongings taken from them and had to live under such inhuman conditions. We were all horrified by the enormous amounts of belongings we saw in the main camp of Auschwitz. These were everything from glasses and kettles to prosthesis and hair. There were also showcases containing several tons of human hair — which was only a small part of the total amount gathered. We were also shown fabric made from such hair. Fabric like this was among other things used in uniforms for german soldiers.

We saw the wooden barracks where the prisoners lived. They were originally designed as stables for 52 horses, but after some small changes, about 500 prisoners could live there. Sometimes there even was as much as 1000 prisoners in one barrack. Along the walls were large, three storey beds which looked more like scaffolds or shelves. On each such "shelf" up to eight prisoners were sleeping.

We saw dungeons. Some were completely dark and some were espesially designed for prisoners to starve to death in them. Some cells were not larger than 90x90 cm. In these, four prisoners were standing upright at the same time for up to four days. The camp’s management thought this was an effective punishment. During some of the medical experiments, prisoners had to stand in this cell with water up to their ankles. They got nothing to eat and nothing to drink, so they were forced to drink the water into which they were standing. The same water also had the function of toilet. During other medical experiments a prisoner’s head was attempted shrinked, or different chemicals were injected into the prisoners to see what the reactions were.

We saw the gas chambers. About 2000-2500 people (numbers from Birkenau) were, literally speaking, stuffed into a gas chamber, the doors closed and Zyklon B poured in through special vents on the wall. After ten to fifteen minutes all the prisoners were dead. The room was aired and the doors opened. A group of prisoners called the sonderkommando had the job to take out the dead, remove all valuables — including gold teeth, cremate the bodies and get rid of the ashes.

We saw the ruins of the largest mass murder the world has seen — an industrial mass murder, where everything was planned and organized down to the smallest detail and nothing left to happen by chance.

We realized what may be the terrible consequences of the power ambitions of such a person as Hitler, when there is nothing in the political system to check or stop him. We have learnt more about an important part of history than we ever could have done from a book. Things we never could have excperienced in other ways. We feel it is important to bring on to others what we have experienced; to help prevent anything like the Holocaust from happening again.

© ThinkQuest team 28260