As part of our commitment to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, a member of the SEJ team accompanied a school group on a trip to Auschwitz in 2011. Featured below is a first-hand account of his experience and the history of the Holocaust.
To help prepare pupils for what they will experience, the Holocaust Educational Trust runs an extensive preparation programme ahead of each visit.
So it was that a very well prepared group – of Holocaust Educational Trust staff and volunteer educators, pupils, teachers and invited guests – mostly journalists – gathered at Edinburgh Airport in the very early hours of a late autumn morning.
Auschwitz I was the first camp to open in 1940, and was primarily a concentration camp.
We visit the hospital block, where the now infamous camp Doctor, Joseph Mengele, carried out horrific medical experiments on camp inmates.
Q&A continues.
Ms Bradley referred to the senior phase in schools, more needs to be done to encourage young people to stay on in education possibly by a change of culture giving more prominence to vocational subjects, and by less assessment.
Ms Gilruth said that our education system in Scotland has not changed but our pupils have.
Keen that education does not become weaponised in the future.
We are asking education to do a lot & schools are now meeting more societal needs now compared to 20 years ago.
