Holocaust memorial day 27th January 2015

• In July 2014 64 students and 8 staff from DACA visited Germany and Poland. One of the main objectives was to visit the Concentration Camps near Krakow in Poland. Auschwitz and Auschwitz B were the sites of the murders of 1.1 million people, mainly but not only Jewish people. On January 27th 1945 70 years ago this week, the camps were liberated by soldiers from the Soviet Union. The following photographs were taken during our visit.

A guard tower and barbed wire fences at Auschwitz.

The gates to CampAuschwitz B, the largest death camp in Europe. Trains filled with peoplepulled up through the gates. Twenty minutes later most were in the gas chambers.

The fence That leads to the labour camp. Inside these fences prisonerswere worked to death.

In these woodenhuts prisonerslived in overcrowdedconditions, with little sanitation or food and no heat. Thousands died.

A pile of empty canistersthat contained Zyklon B, the gas that was used to murderprisoners atAuschwitz.

First They Came By Pastor Martin Niemoller First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me.

Holocaust memorial day 27th January 2015

Holocaust memorial day 27th January 2015

Today and this week we remember the 6 million Jewish people murdered by the Nazis because they were the ‘wrong’ religion. We also remember the 5 million others who were the ‘wrong’ race, nationality, sexuality, disability or held the ‘wrong’ beliefs.

There is a small number of people who survived the death camps visiting Auschwitz this week. They are all aged 80 or above. Soon anyone who actually remembers the Holocaust will be gone.

How will we remember when all the survivors have gone?