Two dedicated Ivybridge Community College students were recently selected to attend a powerful one-day trip to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland.

The Holocaust Educational Trust organised this powerful experience as part of a larger educational project.

The students participated in online seminars and had the humbling opportunity to learn about the Holocaust directly from survivors.

The trip to the memorial site offers an essential and profound connection to history.

The students are now expected to share the lessons of the Holocaust, the importance of remembrance, tolerance, and standing against hatred, with our school and wider community.

Other students look forward to hearing about their reflections and learning from their experience.

Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of the concentration and extermination camp complexes established by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II.

It has become the principal symbol and site of genocide for the Holocaust, where at least 1.1 million people were systematically murdered.

The site was located near the Polish town of Oświęcim (renamed "Auschwitz" by the Germans) and consisted of three main camps and dozens of sub-camps.

Auschwitz I (Main Camp) The original camp, established in April 1940, primarily served as a concentration and forced labour camp for Polish political prisoners and Soviet prisoners of war.

It was the administrative headquarters for the entire complex and featured the infamous "Arbeit macht frei" (Work sets one free) sign over the main gate.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau (Extermination Camp) Constructed in late 1941, this was the largest section and the main site for the "Final Solution"—the Nazi plan for the mass murder of European Jews.

The vast majority of victims were killed in its large-scale gas chambers.

Auschwitz III-Monowitz (Labour Camp) Established in October 1942, this was a forced-labor camp for the German chemical conglomerate IG Farben and other industrial enterprises, who exploited prisoner labour for the war effort.

Around six million Jews died in WWII including one and a half million children.