Its been impending for a while, and on Tuesday I finally got the chance to go on the trip with the Holocaust Educational Trust to Auschwitz for the day.
It was a severely long day, with me getting up at 2:30am and returning just before midnight. Made me extremely sleepy, and I had sixth form the next day. I seriously thought I was going to keel over with the assault on my body. I was even more exhausted physically due to the sheer amount of walking we had to do. Because of my hypermobility, the exertion was magnified, but I pushed my way through it. My motivation was that my pain was nothing compared to the pain of the victims.
But I think the sleep deprivation enhanced the experience for me and made me that bit more vulnerable. In a way it was good as I could take in what I had seen. But on the downside, after visiting the first camp and seeing some of the artefacts and a gas chamber, I felt like my brain shut down. What I’ve seen still hasn’t sunk in now, in a way I think my brain is denying it. According to our group leader, that is to be expected. In a way I am quite scared of my reaction when things do kick in and it occurs to me the ordeal I went through psychologically that day. But that is nothing compared to what the poor people of the Holocaust suffered.
It taught me that even more so it is important not to hold any prejudice. There is no black, white, Christian, Jew or Muslim. There are just people, human beings. Even those we consider to be ‘evil’ are simply human beings.
lifeofasixthformer 