At some point within our education, we have been taught that 6 million European Jews were systematically erased in the brutal genocide during 1939-1945. However, we often tend to forget the individual stories within our harrowing history; we substitute the multitudes of lives with numbers and statistics.
To rehumanise the people that were dehumanised by the Nazi regime and their allies, the Holocaust Education Trust offers a unique opportunity for all state schools across England and Wales to take part in the ‘Lessons from Auschwitz’ project. Post-16 students are given the insurmountable privilege to learn about the Holocaust. This year our year 12 students - Sehajpreet, Rowan, Manprit and Dilpreet- were honoured with such an opportunity.
The students were provided with access to a rich online hub of learning materials– including historical texts, eye-witness testimony, and archival materials, including photographs and film.
On Monday 2nd November, 112 students across the West Midlands all met at the Macdonald Burlington Hotel for the first seminar. Students were divided into 8 groups with a key historian leading the session. Our group was led by the wonderful Steve, who you might see in the background of one of the photos. He helped us to visualise life before 1939 for the Jewish community – not with numbers but with the pictures and names of ordinary people: Ota and Katerina, newlyweds; children at a summer camp and; Berta Rosenheim the five-year-old girl who had just started school.
With so few survivors left, being able to physically meet and listen to the 94-year-old Janine Webber recount her survival story at the seminar is something we cannot take for granted. It made me realise that the events of the holocaust are not just words written in a textbook but are the traumas and memories that are still haunting some. We have a responsibility to carry and retell their memories to others.
On Tuesday 10th November 2026, the anniversary of the Kristal Nacht- arguably the beginning of the holocaust - we flew to Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland. This was a one-day trip to bear witness to the place of death. We witnessed rooms stacked upon stacks with people’s belongings: the tiny shoes of infants, tonnes of human hair, bags and house keys people thought they would use again. There was also a large book with names upon names upon name of the many who were killed.
This was more than just reading numbers in a textbook; this was witnessing the lives that had been robbed.
The year 12 students will now spend the remaining months completing a project within school or their local area to highlight the lessons that they have been taught.
