FOR the third consecutive year a group of secondary school students from Thurrock visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland.
The trip — supported by the Government’s Take Part programme and organised by the council’s diversity team — saw the group travel to Krakow on Saturday and return home on Monday (15 to 17 January).
Thurrock Council Leader, Cllr John Kent and Cllr Phil Anderson joined the two dozen students, teachers and youth workers on the visit in the build-up to Holocaust Day — 27 January. The visit will play a role in the Schools Diversity Project and help highlight the destructive nature of discrimination and prejudice.
Cllr Kent said afterwards: “We all know what went on at Auschwitz-Birkenau, or think we do. But it wasn’t until I saw the tons of human hair which was ready to be sold and made into fabrics when the Allies liberated the camp that it came home to me — they saw human beings as nothing more than commodities.
“Birkenau was specifically designed as a death camp, nothing more than a sophisticated production line of death. In three years over a million people were killed at those two camps; at that rate you would wipe Thurrock out by the end of June!”
He added: “It was a really amazing trip and the other thing which struck me what a fantastic bunch of young people we had with us. Considering we left Grays at 3am, nearly 20 hours later we were all still together and having a good time. They came from different schools, they all got on and they all threw themselves into the project. A great advert for Thurrock’s youth.”
On Holocaust Day (Thursday, 27 January) a service, open to all, will be held at the Memorial Gardens in Grays, at the junction of Palmer’s Avenue and High View Avenue, starting at 11am and running until 12.15.
It will include reflections from the Mayor of Thurrock, Cllr Anne Cheale and statements from Cllrs John Kent and Lynn Worrall as well as MPs Jackie Doyle-Price and Stephen Metcalfe. There will also be Prayers of Faith from a Jewish representative, prayers from the Rev Edward Hanson and a pebble laying service.
At 3pm on the same day, the focus moves to the Thameside Theatre with the Schools Diversity Project presentation. Students and others who visited Auschwitz-Birkenau and Krakow this year will speak of their experiences.
