Eye-Opening Trip to Auschwitz!
Two A level History students, together with Miss Hubbard, were honoured to travel to Poland on a History trip to visit Auschwitz and pay their respects on Tuesday 14th November.
Year 13 students, Lucie and Ronnie, showed the Fulston Family values throughout all aspects of the trip. Both asked pertinent questions during the visit, which were put in such a mature and sensitive way. As they left the gas chamber, Ronnie turned to Miss Hubbard and said "I have goosebumps, Miss, is that normal? I don't understand how something like this can happen". At one point, another student from a different school passed out right in front of them at something they had seen in the camp, which was not a nice thing to see, but Ronnie and Lucie both stayed strong and kept going.
At the end of the day, they attended a memorial service led by a Rabbi. Both students engaged and listened to the Rabbi and his readings. The Rabbi sang a prayer in Hebrew which in the darkness and silence of Auschwitz, really touched both students.
The photograph of the lake is in Oswiecim (the town that was renamed 'Auschwitz' during the German occupation). The town was once highly populated with Jews but, following the impact of anti-Semitism during the war, there is not a single Jew living there now, unsurprisingly.
The Book of Names is on show in block 27 of Auschwitz. It was a project that started in Yad Vashem where they are collating all the names of the victims (only 4 million are registered and there are around 2 million names missing as 6 million were murdered). This was particularly touching for both students and they spent some time looking through the book. They each took a photo of the page and they remembered a name. The idea is that we remember the names as opposed to the victims becoming part of a wider number.
Miss Hubbard said, “It was an honour to take them to Poland and we, as a Fulston family, are very proud that they represented Fulston in this way”.