In November 2024, A Level students at state schools across England were offered the opportunity to visit Auschwitz through the Lessons from Auschwitz Project run by the Holocaust Educational Trust.
A student from Ursuline High School who attended this trip was Martha Keefe.
She described the experience as “very emotional and eye-opening, to walk in the footsteps of the millions that were killed at Auschwitz.”
Martha said that “despite learning about the holocaust in history lessons throughout the years, it wasn’t until experiencing Auschwitz in real life that I really understood the sheer scale and size of the atrocities that took place.
“It can be hard to understand the numbers until standing on the train track looking at miles of barracks.”
The Holocaust Educational Trust’s website outlines that they run this program in order to ‘reflect on the relevance of the Holocaust today’ and ‘consider the individual lives that were affected by the Holocaust.’
Martha believes that these aims were fulfilled, “the details of the holocaust, I thought, were explained to us in a very respectful and accurate way to ensure the memory of the victims were upheld.”
When asked why she put herself forward for this opportunity, Martha said, “World War Two was such an important part of history, it shaped the way society is today, and I think it is important to have a deeper understanding of the horrific events that happened during the Holocaust to ensure the victims are remembered in a respectful way.”
Martha says she “would definitely encourage others to take this opportunity” as she believes “it is important for as many people as possible to have an understanding of the Holocaust to ensure history is not repeated.”
