PUPILS have returned from a trip to Auschwitz “emotionally and physically” drained.

The full horror of the Holocaust was brought home to them when a rabbi told them if they gave a minute’s silence for each victim, they would have to stand at the site for four years.

The Holocaust Educational Trust offers schools two places for students to make the trip and Rebecca Lawrence, 17, and Katie Ambrose, 16, attended from Colbayns High School, Clacton.

Their experience started with the pair attending an orientation seminar in London, where they met survivors of the Holocaust and were given background information.

Nick Farrow, head of sixth form, said: “Each participant was given a letter to read on the flight which explained the pain and heartbreak of a parent who gave up her daughter in order to spare her from imprisonment in a concentration camp.

“The parent was executed, but this painful and ultimate sacrifice saved the life of her daughter, and it was clear that this trip would be an emotional experience and very different from a traditional school trip.”

The students were taken to Auschwitz One, one of three camps.

It was initially an Army barracks, but was transformed into a labour camp.

Prisoners were kept in outbuildings, which now house the evidence of the Holocaust.

Katie said: “There were a lot of different rooms with belongings from people who went to the camps. It struck you, the amount of things that were there.”

She said there was a room full of human hair and another with prosthetic limbs. There was also a collection of children’s clothes, mountains of spectacles, suitcases and shoes. Many photos of prisoners were on display.

“It was draining emotionally and physically,” she said.

The camp had the first gas chambers.

The students then visited Auschwitz Birkenhau.

Rebecca said: “It was very overwhelming.”

“We stopped in between different parts of the camp and were told this was where they separated them – they chose who would work and who would go straight to the chambers.”

Katie and Rebecca are now producing a series of presentations to raise awareness of the Holocaust to other students and staff.