Auschwitz Experience in VET: “The other in my life”

The experience begins with advance preparation followed by the visit to Auschwitz and a subsequent meeting to bring everything we have experienced to a close. The prior preparation allows the participating students from the various programmes to get to know each other and together approach the Holocaust from a historical and personal point of view by watching and then working on the film Schindler's List and attending a talk by Dory Sontheimer.

The activities scheduled during their stay in Poland include exploring the Jewish quarter of Kraków with a specialist, a meeting with a Holocaust witness, a visit to the Auschwitz extermination camp, a personal reflection activity at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and starting each day by looking at what we are going to do and closing it by sharing impressions and experiences.

This is a pastoral proposal that is part of the framework of the evangelising mission that we undertake as schools of the Society of Jesus. For this reason, there are moments of personal reflection, group sharing and internalisation activities to help and support the young people in assimilating the experience. We close our stay in Poland with some contemplation on the Judenrampe to identify the inner movements experienced during this time.

After a few days, we meet at the school to continue sharing the effects of the experience in our daily lives and what actions we are taking in response to the two questions from the start of the experience: After Auschwitz, where is the Other in my life? and On whose behalf do I want to live?