Pupils learn from horror camps
I was struck by the letter headlined "Holocaust trip waste", and think the opinions expressed were totally unfair to all the students and teachers, and especially to the good people who run the Lessons From Auschwitz project.
Mr R Mason talks about the government wasting taxpayers' money, when the truth of the matter is they have only half funded the trip, as each student taking part provides the rest.
I was outraged at his comment about young people knowing nothing about the Holocaust just because we were not around at the time.
We all went to an educational day in Birmingham where we met a Jewish survivor and were filled with knowledge about what happened at the camps.
The staff from Auschwitz made sure every student and teacher new exactly what we were going to see, and why they felt it was important for people to be taken there.
After returning from the trip to Poland to visit the former Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau, I was deeply angered to hear the narrow-minded opinions of some of your readers. Mr Mason wrote: "I'm sure it won't work on the present-day youngsters". I would like to express what I personally took from this experience.
Auschwitz was a mentally and physically draining journey for me; it was horrific in every sense of the word. Seeing the vastness and the extent to which these people went to in order to destroy other people, was the most disturbing thing.
To stand in the gas chamber, to learn the function of the crematorium, to look within the barbed wire fences and walk through the cells. I would neither regret the journey, nor suggest that this rare opportunity was a waste of time and money.
It is important that although this did happen more than 60 years ago, it should never be forgotten. No person on this earth should have been able to take so many lives unchallenged. Those people who perished, they were no different to you or me, their voices just the same. But sadly, these voices were never heard.
Is this a world we want today? We must create a new form of culture where we live alongside one another with respect, or be destined to relive the horrors of the past.
I believe the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust is amazing and I personally am so grateful that they have given me this opportunity.
I feel that as many youngsters as possible should be given the same opportunity.
Adam Carter (aged 16), Smestow School Sixthform, Coats Gate Walk, Pendeford.
