Holocaust talk is a lesson in life for children

Jan 19 2008 by Richard Down, Liverpool Daily Post

HUNDREDS of schoolchildren were confronted by the horrors of genocide as a Holocaust escapee and fellow students recounted their experiences.

Around 300 year-10 pupils attended the one day Holocaust Memorial conference held at the Liverpool Hope University as the city prepares to hold National Holocaust Memorial Day, at the Philharmonic Hall on January 27.

A packed lecture theatre heard staff and students who visited Auschwitz-Birkenau as part of a Holocaust Educational Trust programme give their personal accounts of a tour around the most infamous Nazi concentration camp.

Kay Edwards, head of education at the trust, helped organise trips for scores of young people to Poland in November and believes the experiences helps tackle racism and teach citizenship.

Four Sixth Form pupils from Fazakerley High and Mossley High talked in front of the huge audience and tried to portray what the visit had meant to them.

Craig Morecroft, of Fazakerley High, said: “The first thing that struck me when travelling through the Polish town Oswiecim was that you didn’t see any evidence that something so dreadful had happened there.

“It was snowing and foggy and the full impact of the place was hard to take in.”