Not knowing, I set out to investigate.
Unfortunately the passage of time has severed many of the links I
had with those who also visited Poland in 2007. However, through social media I
managed to contact some 25 of those 40 class mates who originally attended, explaining
why I’d got in touch and asking them if they could spare a few minutes to
consider the following four questions:
1.
Should “everyone” go?
2.
Did it aid your understanding of the
Holocaust?
3.
Has it shaped your world perspective today?
4.
Do you think the camps that still exist should
be destroyed? Or are they important as memorials?
I wasn’t sure what reception this message would get but I am
pleased to say that 5 of those contacted did reply, with insightful and well
considered responses. I appreciate it is not an easy thing to be asked to
remember and I’m sure there are some
haven’t given it a second thought, while for others it will have replayed
numerous times. Then of course, being asked to share those thoughts is perhaps
a bit exposing, while others might not have wanted too. However, in a sense the
‘why’s’ do not really matter, what does, is the commonalities that appeared in
those 5 responses I did receive.
1. Should “everyone” go?
This first question divided the responders. Generally there was a
feeling that if circumstances allowed, people should visit and be exposed to
those educational messages. For example:
CL - ‘I
definitely agree that everyone should go. When you read about such historical
horrors, it can be easy to be overwhelmed by the facts and figures that seem
entirely unfathomable and thus forget…. But the feelings you experience when
you visit…. Entirely unforgettable’.
However an air of caution was also expressed:
ZC - ‘I think the trip is very stressful so
perhaps not everyone - I still get upset thinking about it now, especially the
block they used to torture… ‘.
This response draws parallels with the view of fellow public
historian Emma, who was inspired by my first blog to recall her experiences to
Auschwitz in 2003 (1). I was struck by her comment about the lack preparation
she was exposed too in advance of her school trip, for the arrangements around
ours were very different.
Firstly, to be eligible for the trip you had to be studying either
history or religious education which would provide you with the necessary
background and context for the trip you were about to make. Furthermore,
lunchtime sessions were also held in the weeks before where all were gathered
to watch Schindler’s List. I think there was also discussion beforehand of what
you might expect and how you might react. The staff had really considered what
was necessary to prepare a 14/15 year olds for this trip so that it was a
beneficial experience and one not purely wrought with emotion. It was a trip
they’d run for years before taking us, so they had it pretty honed down by the
time our turn came around – but perhaps that was a lesson learnt by experience?
Either way the trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau and to the site of Plaszow was
grounded in prior knowledge.
A mixed response then to this first question, but one that largely
resonates with my own.
2. Did it aid your understanding of the Holocaust?
This question sparked a more general consensus and that was yes,
all responders walked away possessing greater understanding of what they’d been
taught – the realisation of the magnitude of it being a particular point all
recalled vividly:
SD
– ‘it gave me a more realistic understanding, history lessons are on paper and
this was startlingly real’.
MC
– ‘[It] not only gave me a greater understanding of what happened, it made me
aware how many people suffered and lost their lives. From walking around the
camp and seeing the suitcases labelled with their return addresses and hair
still tied in hairbands, it makes you realise how evil mankind can really be’.
ZC – ‘It
definitely aided my understanding and added context to what I had already
learnt. It made what I had read and watched “real”, rather than just another
lesson in the classroom. It also brings to life the scale of what happened,
which despite being told the number, I had never fully realised before
visiting’.
Pictures cannot compare to seeing the real thing with your own
eyes. It’s this whole argument about the response a ‘sense of place’ evokes –
you’re not removed from it, you’re immersed in it and that feeling is not one
easily forgotten. It leaves a lasting impression, as MC clearly shows in her
recollection of the suitcases and human hair. You could all too easily skim
over that when reading a text book, but when you’re confronted with a glass
case full of false legs and spectacles and stats that say 1 in 4 men wore
glasses – the magnitude of it hits you.
In her blog Emma is sceptical of the potential to learn from such
a place and criticises the idea of ‘understanding’ - believing it can only be
definitive – complete, job done. I disagree, there are something’s beyond full comprehension,
this being one of them, but you can achieve a level of understanding and that
is what all responders and myself walked away possessing a greater level of after
our visit.
3. Has it shaped your world perspective today?
This is perhaps the question I was most interested in hearing the
responses too, for I was interested to see how the lessons learned by studying
the Holocaust and visiting some of the places in which it happened had shaped
the world view of the others, if of course at all, and how they may have
carried that forward into their current lives.
The first responder’s recollections tie in with one of the lasting
impressions I have of the trip in terms of the impact it had on us as a group. Like
many school year groups, as a cohort we were divided by ‘factions’ and clashes
of personalities did lead to bullying and people reaching judgements about
others based on very little more than assumption. But as NM recalls:
‘when at Auschwitz, I don’t know about
you, but I felt it bought everyone together. We all had the same feelings that
what had happened was just awful…. For me it has taught me not to judge people,
everyone is different… we all have our own beliefs and that doesn’t make one
person more superior than another…’
And I couldn’t agree more for that is something I also took away,
but was somewhat surprised it wasn’t remembered by more people than just us two.
I remember us leaving for Poland divided into those factions yet coming back a
more united unit which carried on for the rest of the year. I spoke to people
on that trip that I’d never spoken too before and even cried with them; our
vulnerability forced us to depend on each other in that moment and when we came
back we continued to have conservations and exchange civilities. There is a lot
to be learnt at Auschwitz alongside the history – lessons in citizenship and
humanity are also taught, important steps in preventing such an atrocity
occurring again.
A further point was raised by the responders in relation to this
questions and that was the impact it has had on their world perspective and
heightened engagement with politics and world issues:
ZC – ‘Yes, since the first day there
it changed my perspective. I am far less naïve, I certainly think more
carefully before I open my mouth, judge a race/religion, it drove me to become
more politically aware so I can make informed decisions when voting,
considering the Nazis were VOTED into power’.
SD – ‘I think my world perspective
growing up was shaped by many things and is continuing to be shaped, but I do
often think about this trip and how easy it is to be a bystander on world
issues and how important it is to stand against inhumanity’.
4. Do you think the camps that still exist should
be destroyed? Or are they important as memorials?
The final question sparked consensus again:
NM – ‘There is so much history at
places like Auschwitz and these need to be kept for generations in the future
to see and to gain understanding of what happened’
SD – ‘how they have been left
abandoned is important to see the realism of something so unimaginable’
MC – ‘So many innocent people lost
their lives; it is there graveyard and should never be forgotten.’
ZC – ‘I think by running trips like
the one that I went on, it might change the perspective of those children and
who knows what a difference that handful of enlightened minds could do?’
The importance of places like Auschwitz came through in all those
responses, both in terms of the educational value but also in the role they
play as places of remembrance, memorialisation and of warning.
Five responses out of forty is a small percentage and on some
level I wish I’d had more data on which to base some of these conclusions. I am
sure there is more that could have been said and different points that could
have been raised, but what I am reassured by is that at least those 5 people
took something away from that trip, just as I did and that it did have a
lasting impact on those few.
Would I therefore stick by my original conclusion that school
children should be encouraged to make a similar trip to ours? Yes I would, even
though I wavered when watching Night will
Fall. I think there is great need for exposure to such things, the lasting
impact far outweighing the initial shock that comes with realising the
magnitude of the Holocaust.
(1)
https://yorehistory.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/return-or-single-ticket-the-future-of-auswitz/
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