Learning lessons from the past on Holocaust Memorial Day

THE Holocaust took place between 1941-45, with an aim to exterminate the Jewish population in Europe. By the time the Second World War ended in 1945, Nazi Germany had systematically murdered an estimated 17 million people who were deemed "racially inferior". Those who fell victim were primarily Jews, ethnic Poles, Roma people and other Slavs.

According to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust the day is a time to remember the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution and in the genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

On it's website the trust says: "Holocaust Memorial Day is a time when we seek to learn the lessons of the past and recognise that genocide does not just take place on its own - it’s a steady process which can begin if discrimination, racism and hatred are not checked and prevented.

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"We’re fortunate here in the UK; we are not at immediate risk of genocide. However, discrimination has not ended, nor has the use of the language of hatred or exclusion. There is still much to do to create a safer future and HMD is an opportunity to start this process."

Two years ago a group of more than 100 pupils from across Wales, many of them from Gwent, visited one of the most notorious extermination camps in Nazi-occupied Poland in a one-day visit, with a simple aim: to never allow the Holocaust and other crimes committed by Nazi Germany to be forgotten.

The Lessons from Auschwitz project, which was arranged by the Holocaust Educational Trust, involved pupils visiting Oswiecim, a town with a once high Jewish population, as well as Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Barbed wire at Auschwitz

Pupils were told of the crimes committed by the Nazis against Jews, Poles, Roma people, homosexuals as well as other countless groups.

And they reacted with a range of emotions and have described how the experience made them feel.

St Josephs RC High School pupil Gradyn Paders-Ball said: "I had been feeling a little excited but also unnerved by what I was going to see.

"When I got there it quickly became a hard-hitting experience. It gave to me a different perspective as to what actually happened."

Gradyn Paders-Ball, Shireen Balouch, Claudia Peters and Carlo Fenucci at Birkenhau

Shireen Balouch, from the same school, said: "I found it overwhelming. I have studied history since primary and to come here and see it really does humanise it while in a classroom does not.

"I have so many emotions going around my head at the moment."

Claudia Peter, who is from St Julian's School, found the visit "upsetting".

She said: "It has been eye-opening today. Seeing people's hair and items was very upsetting. It must have been horrendous for those people."

Students at former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. Picture: Yakir Zur/PA Wire

Pupil Carlo Fenucci, also of St Julian's School, said: "I found it very humbling and overwhelming."

For the two John Frost School pupils who visited, they found the experience an "eye-opener".

"It was very upsetting and I did not quite realise lots of the victims - like the Poles and Roma people," said Louis Watkins.

"It was a real eye-opener. We must never allow what happened here to be forgotten."

Daniel Turner and Louis Watkins learning about Nazi Germany

And Daniel Turner said: "Reading about something is not the same as actually seeing it with your eyes.

"It was an eye-opener for Louis and I."