The main purpose of our trip was to visit the death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau as well as to visit the Salt Mines and explore the beautiful city of Krakow.

Our trip started with a visit to the Salt Mines, a thirty minute bus ride from the city centre. They are unquestionably a wonder, and have been under the protection of UNESCO since 1978. We were given a guide of part of the mine and students were given the opportunity to appreciate some of the inspirational features including The Chapel which was quite spectacular. We ended our evening with a meal deep below the surface in a restaurant situated in the mine.

On Saturday 4 February 2017, we woke early, had our breakfast and set off by coach for our first stop which was Auschwitz. 

Staff had visited the camp before but for students it was their first opportunity to stand in the place where such atrocities had happened and bear witness. As they silently walked around, some shedding tears, they tried to process the information and make sense of what they were seeing. For some, this is something that will take time. 

Birkenau was a similar experience, as we stood in the place where millions of people were imprisoned and murdered, the haunting atmosphere and freezing cold weather made the whole event feel real – the vastness of the camp, the bleak surroundings, the children’s barracks, the reality of what happened hit home. 

As hard and as intense as it was to visit, I am glad our students got the opportunity to visit these camps. It was thought provoking and gave many a perspective that they did not have before. As we spent our last minutes at the memorial site and took a moment to reflect, we spoke about the responsibility to share the message of what happens when people do not speak out against injustice. 

On Sunday 5 February 2017, our trip ended off with a walking tour of Krakow and the first part of the tour gave us the opportunity to appreciate the beauty of the city. The second half of the tour focused on the old Jewish quarters in Krakow which was the centre of Jewish life for over 500 years before it was systematically destroyed during World War II. Amongst other things, we visited a synagogue, the Jewish cemetery as well as the film set for Steven Spielberg’s Oscar winner, Schindler’s List. 

After lunch we visited Oscar Schindler’s museum where we got a better understanding of what Poland and Krakow was like under German occupation.

I am so very grateful that we were able to make this trip again and that we were able to pay our respects to the victims of such an atrocity. It has hopefully created 59 more informed and responsible teenagers who know why the Holocaust is important and will not forget it. As one of the boys commented to me as we were flying out of Krakow that with all that is going on in the world at the moment, our timing for this trip could not have been better. I could not agree more. It made many of them aware of the need to tackle prejudice and discrimination on all levels.

For us as a department, it was once again a trip that confirms our belief that we have an important role to play in making sure that we not only remember the Holocaust and safeguard the memories, but that we also use it to promote tolerance and acceptance of diversity and to help make sure that we all remember that “He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it”. George Santayana

Mrs L Fouche
Head of Faculty - Humanities