Pupils at Loudoun Academy in Galston stood silent for one minute on Holocaust Memorial Day last week, as they remembered the deaths of victims of Nazi Germany - including over one million children

At Loudoun Academy, Galston, senior pupils Scott Elder and Jennifer Paterson, both 17, spoke to all the young people in the school over a week, in a series of morning assemblies.

The pair recently returned from a trip to Auschwitz organized by the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) as part of the groundbreaking Lessons from Auschwitz (LFA) project.

Through the LFA Project, students and teachers take part in seminars and a one-day visit to the former Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, in order to then pass on the lessons in their schools and communities.

Scott and Jennifer travelled as part of a Scottish group which included young people from several East Ayrshire secondary schools.

Pupils were guided round the concentration camp Auschwitz 1, passing under the notorious entrance sign ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ (‘Work sets you free’), to see where prisoners lived and worked.

They then visited Birkenau, the neighbouring death camp, with its huge gas chambers - where around 1.4 million people were tortured and gassed by Nazis during the Second World War. Victims were mainly Jews, but also included Poles, gypsies and Russian prisoners of war.

One room in the museum has a glass wall, behind which is a mountain of human hair, shaved from the bodies of victims. Around 700,000 people visit the Auschwitz death camp every year.

Before the trip, Scott and Jennifer met a holocaust survivor in Glasgow, who was imprisoned with her mother in Birkenau. Jennifer and Scott were impressed by how “tough and strong” she was and were particularly struck when she said she was “beyond tears”, describing how she and her mother stole from the dead to survive.

Since their return, the students have worked on promoting the importance of remembering the Holocaust throughout the school.  They prepared a presentation for all year group assemblies and organised a minute’s silence on Friday 27 January, Holocaust Memorial Day.

Jennifer said: “The journey to Auschwitz was a life-changing and emotional experience, which made me realise what is significant and what is insignificant in life.”

Scott said:  “It was staggering to be in the presence of such cruelty. If anyone has the chance to visit, they should”.

History teacher Sarah Purdie said: “Jennifer and Scott’s presentations emphasised the connections between the Holocaust and our everyday lives. They stressed everyone’s personal responsibility as good citizens to speak out against bullying and prejudice.

“Their work has been a very valuable part of the learning experience of the whole school, with pupils discovering more about the importance of compassion, tolerance and respect. This gave all Loudoun’s young people plenty to think about during the minute’s silence”.