A-level pupils from Ounsdale High School, South Staffordshire travelled to Poland to take part in official British and international commemoration services to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the UK’s Holocaust Memorial Day. The visit was led by the Head of History and Politics at Ounsdale High School Paul Ginnings, who is a member of the Imperial War Museum Holocaust Education Fellowship Programme. The pupils visited a series of sites, which have wider significance to the history of the Holocaust. They also had the opportunity to meet relatives of British Prisoners of War and hear first-hand accounts from Jewish survivors of the camps.
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Poland Itinerary
Poland Itinerary
Below is the itinerary that was followed by pupils on their five-day visit.
If you would like to find out more about the places to visit on an educational trip to Poland please see the ‘Places to visit in Poland’ section below.
Poland Itinerary
Day 1
- Travel to Poland
- Walking tour of Kazimierz
Day 2
- A visit to Auschwitz Museum
- Attendance at a plaque unveiling ceremony by Mr Caplin MP (Minister for Veterans) – the plaque recorded the names and regiments of the 38 British POWs killed at Monowice
- Lunch with Mr Caplin and the President of the Town Council at Patac Stubow
- Attendance at the main official commemorative event at Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp
Day 3
- Travel to Zamosc via Rzeszow to visit some locals sites
Day 4
- A visit to Belzec Death Camp new museum and memorial
- Travel to Lublin stopping at Izbica railway station, cemetery and Trawniki SS Camp Guard training centre
- Tour of Aktion Reinhard Headquarters – City of Lublin
Day 5
- A visit to Majdanek Concentration Camp
- Return journey to Krakow via Kielce
Day 6
- A tour of Krakow centre - including Wawel Castle, Schindler factory, Plaszow and the Cracow Rakowicki Cemetery
- Homeward travel
Places to Visit in Poland
If you are planning a visit to Poland to learn about the Second World War and the Holocaust visit some of the places described below. You could also visit the following websites for further information:
http://www.poland.pl/
http://www.visitpoland.org/
Disclaimer:
All the sites listed are checked regularly. However, the changing nature of the Internet means that some sites may alter after we have visited them. Their Past Your Future is not responsible for the content of external websites.
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Address: Wiezniow Oswiecimia 20, 32-603, Oswiecim
Tel: 0048 33 8432022 / 8432077 / 8432133
Website: http://www.auschwitz-muzeum.oswiecim.pl/
The grounds and buildings of the Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau camps are open to visitors, with the exception of several blocks in Auschwitz I that house the administration, museum departments and storage. There is generally access to all barracks at Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
The Nazis opened the first Auschwitz camps for men and women at Auschwitz I and it was where the Nazis carried out the first experiments using Zyklon B. It was also where the central jail for prisoners from all over the complex was situated (Block No.11) and the location of the camp commandant's office and most of the SS offices. From here, the camp administration directed the further expansion of the camp complex.
In the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, everything happened on a magnified scale. This is where the Nazis erected most of the machinery of mass extermination in which they murdered approximately one million European Jews. At the same time, Birkenau was the largest concentration camp (with nearly 300 primitive barracks, most of them wooden). Over a hundred thousand prisoners at a time were here: Jews, Poles, Roma and others. The site of this camp contains places that are still full of human ashes; the greatest portion of what remains of the Auschwitz complex is here.
From January 2005, the so-called Judenrampe has been commemorated. This is the siding located between Auschwitz and Birkenau and it was here that in 1942-1944 deported Jews, Poles, Roma, and others arrived. Up to May 1944, newly arrived Jews were selected by SS doctors at this location.
The first gas chamber, located beyond the borders of the Museum and started by the Germans in spring 1942, is also commemorated. It is located not far from Birkenau and is known as the Little Red House.
Belzec Camp
Address: ul. Zamojska 2, 22-600 Tomaszow Lubelski, Poland
Tel: None available
Website: http://auschwitz.dk/Belzec.htm
Belzec camp was the model for two others in the 'Aktion Reinhard' program, and was started as a labour camp in April 1940. Belzec was situated in the Lublin district forty-seven miles north of the major city of Lvov, between the large Jewish populations of southeast Poland and eastern Galicia.
Cracow Rakowicki CWGC Cemetery
Website: http://www.cwgc.org/cwgcinternet/cemetery_details.aspx?
cemetery=2016900&mode=1
There are 483 Commonwealth casualties of the Second World War buried or commemorated in Crakow Rakowicki Cemetery. There are also 24 non-war graves, those of civilian internees (including two Imperial War Graves Commission gardeners) and 15 Polish war graves.
Kazimierz
Website: http://www.inyourpocket.com/poland/krakow/en/
category?cid=4623&chid=317
Kazimierz is the district that housed Krakow's Jews for some 500 years. In the last decade it has been rediscovered, and its hollowed-out Jewish culture gradually reintroduced. It is famous for its associations with Schindler and Spielberg.
Krakow
Website: http://www.krakow-info.com/
Krakow remained the most important city in the southwest part of the Republic of Poland till September 1939 when Hitler’s Third Reich and Stalin’s Soviet Union invaded the country and divided it between themselves. On the German-occupied territory the Nazis created a protectorate with their governor-general’s residence in Krakow. Fortunately, the historic city survived almost intact the Soviet offensive in January 1945. After the Second World War Krakow retained its status as Poland’s second most important city.
Lublin
Website: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Lublin.html
Lublin once served as one the most important centres of Jewish life, commerce, culture and scholarship in Europe. It had the world's largest Talmudic school, Yeshybot.
The Germans captured Lublin on September 18, 1939. The Jewish population doubled by 1941 and reached about 45,000, including 6,300 refugees from other cities. Lublin became a centre of mass extermination of Jews during the Holocaust.
Lublin was the first city liberated in Poland by the Russian army on July 24, 1944 and served as a temporary Polish capital until the liberation of Warsaw in January 1945. After the war, 5,000 Jews settled in Lublin, many of whom lived in the Soviet Union during the Holocaust. However, a mass exodus took place after the Kielce Pogrom.
A Jewish cultural society was active in the city until 1968, when the remainder of the population left Poland.
Majdanek Concentration Camp
Address: ul. Droga Męczenników Majdanka 67, 20-325 Lublin
Tel: 081 74426 40 / 74426 47 / 74426 48 / 74426 49
Website: http://www.majdanek.pl/en/oboz.htm
The concentration camp in Lublin, commonly referred to as Majdanek, was the second largest Nazi camp of this type in Europe after Auschwitz. Majdanek was located on the southeastern suburbs of Lublin, near the route from Lublin to Zamość and Lvov.
Plaszow
Address: No address. It is a memorial in a field on ul.H Kamienskiego
Website: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/
Holocaust/Plaszow.html
The Plaszow camp, established in 1942 under the authority of the SS and police leaders in Crakow was initially a forced-labour camp for Jews. The original site of the camp included two Jewish cemeteries. From time to time the SS enlarged the camp. It reached its maximum size in 1944, the same year that it became a concentration camp. Until that time, most of the camp guards were Ukrainian police auxiliaries chosen from among Soviet soldiers in German prisoner-of-war camps and trained at the Trawniki training camp in Lublin.
Schindler’s Factory
Address: Schindler enamel dish factory, Emalia at No.4 ul. Lipowa
On ul Lipowa 4 is Schindler’s pot and pan factory, which is in use today for making electronic parts. There is a monument in the courtyard of the factory.
Trawniki Camp
Address: Trawniki Village
Website: http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/trawniki.html
Trawniki village is located approximately 40 km east of Lublin. In autumn 1941, the Nazis established a labour camp here at an old sugar factory, and an SS training camp for SS recruits from Russia and the Baltic States.
The camp housed Soviet POWs and Polish Jews, and belonged to the network of camps under the control of SS-Brigadeführer Odilo Globocnik, the SSPF (SS- and Police Leader) in the Lublin district.
Wawel Castle
Address: 31-001 Kraków, Wawel 5
Tel: (+48 12) 4225155 / 4221950
Website: http://www.wawel.krakow.pl/emenu.htm
Wawel Royal Castle is a historical residence in character which houses some specialised exhibitions as well as two departments located outside Cracow.
Zamosc
Website: http://www.humboldt.edu/~rescuers/book/damski/
dlinks/zamosc.html
Founded in the late 16th century, Zamosc is the principal city of a province of the same name in eastern Poland. Before World War Two, Zamosc had a large Jewish community.
The Germans declared the area to be the "First Resettlement Area" of the General Government in November 1942, which resulted in the "ethnic cleansing" of hundreds of villages in the region, to make room for German nationals. Tens of thousands of Poles were deported to labour or extermination camps, or killed outright, while others were singled out to be "Germanised" and resettled in the Reich.
