Before this project I had conciously avoided going to Auschwitz feeling uncomfortable about going somewhere where I might feel as though I was trespassing for no good reason as I had already read very widely. Indeed I personally would still not go unless it was for an educational pupose and I was involved in taking students around who otherwise would not engage with the issues concerned through wider reading. I still have some problems with a visit to Auschwitz as it can tend to dominate a persons perception and understanding of what the Holocaust was. That is why in my work for the Holocaust Educational Trust I try my utmost to point out the wider context of Auschwitz wherever I can. I am still trying to work out for myself why I go in the way that I do and whether it is entirely appropriate. To see the pictures of the Jewish people who died there as they would have wished to be remembered (in pictures that they had taken by their families and friends) after walking around Birkenau is the most powerful part of the trip for me and goes some way to explaining the purpose of my visit.
Peter Morgan, Secondary School Teacher and LFA educator
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