Richard Benyon's Westminster Diary, March 25 2009

Richard Benyon MP • Published 25 Mar 2009 09:30

"I WANT you to suspend your life for a day".

With these words the Rabbi leading a trip to Auschwitz set the scene for a sombre but unforgettable day.

I was part of a group organised by the Holocaust Education Trust, which included pupils from West Berkshire schools.

The fact that the trip can be done in a day from leafy West Berkshire is, in itself, worth contemplation.

The Holocaust took place in our own back yard. Having read books on the subject and seen films such as Schindler's List, I thought I would be prepared for what I saw but somehow nothing quite prepares you.

What struck me was the ruthless efficiency of the whole murderous process.

This was not the action of a few Nazis in "elite" organisations such as the SS. This was a massive effort of bureaucratic and technological endeavour that stretched across Europe from Greece in the south to the Baltic States in the north.

I saw images that will remain with me for the rest of my life. In a part of Auschwitz there is a museum that contains exhibits of such poignancy that it sucks the ability for speech from your chest and throat. I saw a four tonne heap of human hair that had been shorn from the heads of those just murdered in the gas chambers.

Looking closely I saw a child's plait. I could only think of the mother gently plaiting her daughter's hair that very morning on the crowded cattle truck.

Elsewhere I saw a pile of spectacles and wondered at the wasted intellects behind the eyes that had looked through them.

The system that brought this horror on humanity was not satisfied with simple extermination. Those that were temporarily spared in order that they could work were humiliated in ways that defy my ability to describe.

Some say this was all a long time ago and that the past should be buried along with the gas chambers and crematoriums. I say this disgusting affront to humanity should be understood by everyone.

Not that most of us could understand the hatred that lies behind such acts. It is only by understanding what happened that such atrocities are prevented in the future.

- THE trip to Auschwitz forms a key part of the Lessons From Auschwitz Project which has been held annually since 1998 to educate young people about the Holocaust. Organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET), more than 5,000 students and teachers have taken part on the project to date.

Government funding worth £1.5m was secured in 2005 to organise visits for two students from every school across Britain. The West Berkshire schools represented on the trip were Park House and St Gabriel's from Newbury, Kennet School at Thatcham, Downe House at Cold Ash, John O 'Gaunt from Hungerford, The Downs at Compton and Tilehurst's Little Heath

Ben Collins, 18, a student at The Downs School in Compton, said: "It was such a mindblowing experience.

"I mean you can read as many books as you like but when you see it first-hand it's completely different.

"I wanted to come here and see it for myself and I think the HET project is really good.

"The fact we can go out and present what we have witnessed to others is a really good thing."

Unfortunately the very hatred that you witness at Auschwitz still manifests itself. The Balkans, Rwanda, Darfur, and the killing fields of Cambodia show that barely a decade goes by without the shadow of the Nazi killing machine falling on some blighted people in some corner of the world.

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This blog appeared in Reading Chronicle 25 Mar 09

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