TEENAGERS from Budmouth Technology College and Thomas Hardye School were among those who went to Poland for what turned out to be a physically and mentally gruelling day that will stay with them forever.

They took a tour of what the guides describe as ‘a factory of death’ to see what was found when the camp was liberated and they also stood inside the one remaining gas chamber from the original camp.

Among the items kept on display were piles of babies’ and children’s shoes and the possessions of the Jews and political prisoners who spent up to 12 days on trains heading for what they were told would be a new life.

The day visit was funded and arranged by the Holocaust Educational Trust – established to take youngsters from as many schools as possible to Auschwitz so they can go home and tell their peers what they saw.

Budmouth student Gemma Beale, 16, from Chickerell, admitted she was scared ahead of the trip but was glad she went.

“I was terrified of what I was going to find out and think and feel,” she said.

“It was the babies’ clothes that got me.

“The visit makes you appreciate things so much more.”

Her friend Jessie Benson, 17, from Radipole, added: “I think the schools should run big trips with more students.

“It’s too valuable an experience to miss.

“The students’ guide described to them how Auschwitz was chosen as a camp for the Nazis’ Final Solution as it sits in the centre of Europe.

The students were told how the prisoners were told to pack one suitcase each before they left home and boarded the train.

They were shown pictures of an SS officer greeting the camp’s visitors with a flick of his finger to direct them to go off to the camp to work or to go straight to the showers.

The guide told how the frail, young and anybody else deemed unfit for work were told to strip down and leave their suitcase outside so they could collect it when they had showered.

And the students were then shown models that illustrated the terror gripping the victims as they realised what was happening.

It showed the prisoners closest to the Zyklon B gas collapsing while the others had time to see what was happening and tried to scramble to the door but were trapped.

Afterwards, Jack Welch, 16, from Chickerell, visiting from Weymouth College, said: “As long as one can understand not why it happened but the violent consequences I think that’s the most relevant point.”

The teenagers were taken to the “death wall” – a hidden away area within Auschwitz I where prisoners were shot.

They also toured block 11 where prisoners were punished – including the cubicles where they spent the night in an enclosed area too small to sit down.

They were also shown the block where Nazi doctor Josef Mengele subjected twins who were brought to the camp to his scientific experiments designed to discover how to enhance the multiplication of the Aryan race.

The guide also told how some young prisoners with blond hair and blue eyes were sent to Germany to be adopted by a new family.

Emmie Chadwick, 18, from the Thomas Hardye School, was glad she went and said: “The parts about the children have really affected me.

“You see a building and understand things happened but with the personal stuff you see a name and you think about the person.”

Emmie’s friend Molly Charlesworth, 16, added: “You don’t realise how big it’s going to be.”

From Auschwitz I the students were taken to Auschwitz II – Birkenau.

The guide described how prisoners were forced to build Birkenau as an extension to the original camp when the numbers of arrivals grew.

And the students learned how the Germans destroyed the large gas chambers and wooden boarding houses in Birkenau before they left to try and hide the evidence.

But the sheer size of the camp and the few restored buildings showed the magnitude of what happened and they got to look out from the famous watchtower that looked down on the camp.

Claire West, 18, from Bridport and also from Weymouth College, said trips to Auschwitz are important to counter the effect of far right political groups like the BNP.

She said: “Everyone needs to know the importance of remembering and being able to pass this on.”

At the end of the day, Rabbi Barry Marcus echoed a sign that had greeted the students soon after arriving which read ‘the one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again’. He addressed the group at a memorial close to the famous Auschwitz train tracks before candles were handed out for students to lay on the ground and reflect on the day.

In his speech, Rabbi Marcus said he is asked: “Why do you continue to remember? Why not leave the past alone?”

He said he replies: “I wish I could. But as I stand here there are printing presses printing a holocaust denial.”

He added: “From coming here today you will understand you are not meant to repeat the mistakes of the past. You can affect the present and the future and that is the challenge that faces each and every one of you.”

Auschwitz is the German name for Oswiecim, a Polish town that was annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis.

The camp was originally an army barracks and was then used to house Polish political prisoners.

It housed gypsies and other ethnic groups but became central to the Nazi’s ‘final solution’ campaign to murder the Jews.

Prisoners were marched under the Auschwitz sign ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ every day on their way out to work.

The sign translates as ‘work brings freedom’ or ‘work makes you free’.

The Auschwitz band – made up of prisoners – played alongside the entrance so the prisoners marched in time and that made it easier for them to be counted.

The original camp became known as Auschwitz I when Auschwitz II – or Auschwitz Birkenau – was built nearby.

Old horse stables were transformed into boarding houses where Jews slept on their sides in a bunk alongside 11 others due to lack of space.

Around 1.3million people perished in Auschwitz during the Second World War and six million Jews were killed in total.

Students on the trip with the Holocaust Educational Trust were taken to the original Jewish cemetery in Oswiecim and told how the Germans had removed the headstones in order to try and remove the memory of the Jews.

The town was home to a large Jewish population before the Second World War.

But when some returned afterwards they were met with derision from the Poles and after bringing the headstones back to the cemetery all of the Jews left except one man who stayed and lived alone.

n arron.hendy@dorsetecho.co.uk