The phrase ‘life-changing experience’ can sound at best a little cliché, and at worst rather hackneyed. In the case of the Lessons from Auschwitz (LFA) Project, however, this is the only way I can fully encapsulate my participation.
I had visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum once before, as part of a GCSE History trip in 2007. In the classroom – without casting any shade on my brilliant History teachers – we had largely studied the Holocaust through textbooks. Graphic images filled the pages, and the text was replete with incomprehensible figures and statistics, most notably ‘six million’. In short, there was no sense of rehumanisation or individuality for those who were murdered in the Holocaust. During the trip, we were also quite tight for time, so took an overnight coach from Berlin to Kraków, quickly dropping our luggage off at our hotel before travelling onwards to the Museum. This felt like a great adventure for a group of 14- and 15-year-olds, chatting until the early hours of the morning and watching unfamiliar landscapes go past in the dark. Unfortunately, however, the combination of a clinical study of the Holocaust, lack of sleep and our young age made the visit utterly overwhelming. I felt too nauseous and emotional to properly take anything in, and vowed that I would never visit the Auschwitz Museum again.
Yet my curiosity was piqued a couple of years later, when it was announced that two Sixth Form students would be chosen to take part in the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz Project. I had retained an interest in this history, and the structure of the programme sounded very complementary to the visit. Two names were drawn at random, such was the volume of students who wanted to participate, and mine was one of them. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was a twist of fate that would have long-lasting consequences.
I don’t think I need to say too much about the Project itself. The thousands of Ambassadors who have taken part will undoubtedly always remember its impact: the survivor testimony they heard; the historical artefacts and buildings they saw; the ways they shared what they wished to pass onto their peers in their Next Steps. My fellow Ambassador, Amrit, and I delivered a series of workshops in our school and a few others in North London, culminating in an art exhibition displayed at the local town hall, with the late survivor Zigi Shipper in attendance. But beyond this, I wanted to keep learning about the Holocaust, attending the Trust’s events and meeting survivors.
Speaking at a Holocaust Educational Trust event at the Imperial War Museum with my fellow Ambassador, Amrit Kaur Lohia, in July 2010
When the Regional Ambassador (RA) programme was announced in 2013, I was delighted to be included in the first cohort, representing the West Midlands (where I was then studying at university). I organised ‘West Midlands Remembers’, where three different survivors spoke at three different universities, delivered presentations at LFA Follow-Up Seminars, and participated in RA Days in Birmingham, London and Manchester. Even more excitingly, I completed the first Ambassador Study Visits to Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
I was nearing the end of my Psychology undergraduate degree at The University of Birmingham. Over the course of my studies, it had become clear that I didn’t possess the same level of scientific ability as my classmates, and that perhaps I wasn’t really interested in training as a psychologist after all. On a whim – thinking nothing would come up – I searched for postgraduate courses focused on the Holocaust. Immediately, I was directed to the MA Holocaust Studies degree at Royal Holloway, University of London, and its world-class Holocaust Research Centre (now Institute). I instantly knew this was the course for me.
I completed my Master’s and began a PhD, also at Royal Holloway, in 2016. My tenure as a Regional Ambassador came to an end the same year, finishing with a co-curated exhibition at The Wiener Holocaust Library on ‘Dilemmas, Choices, Responses: Britain and the Holocaust’. My work with the Trust continued the following year, however, when I was invited to train as a freelance Outreach Educator. In 2019 – 10 years after I had participated in LFA – I led my first group as an Educator for the Project, having completed additional training in Kraków and the Auschwitz Museum. The physical visits were replaced by Lessons from Auschwitz Online during the pandemic lockdowns, but a truly full-circle moment came recently when I met one of my online participants for the first time – who has also become a Regional Ambassador!
With Kitty Hart-Moxon at the launch of our co-curated exhibition at The Wiener Holocaust Library, April 2016. © Yakir Zur
Last but certainly not least, from November 2023-August 2024 I worked part-time as an Education Officer for the Trust’s new programme, Testimony 360. Seeing students’ reactions to Manfred Goldberg’s interactive testimony, and virtually exploring some of the spaces connected to his story, has been a truly powerful experience, and I cannot wait to see how the programme develops in the future.
Educating on the Lessons from Auschwitz Project
The Holocaust Educational Trust has provided me with the most incredible opportunities over the last 15 years. In addition to the above, these have included appearing in the 2013 Appeal Film, integrating my doctoral research into updated versions of LFA content, and meeting the then-Prime Minister David Cameron and HRH Prince William! More importantly, however, participating in the Lessons from Auschwitz Project sowed the seeds of a lifelong passion for studying, and teaching others about, the Holocaust. Since gaining my PhD in 2020, I have had the privilege to work for and with several other excellent Holocaust-related organisations, and am now writing a book on the history of two German Jewish families and their experiences in the genocide. I love what I do, and cannot imagine a career in anything else. I am pleased that I took the opportunity, all those years ago, to reshape my experience of visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum – having vowed that once was enough, I have now been back over 25 times – but I will be forever grateful to the Holocaust Educational Trust for setting me on this path. Here’s to the next 15 years!