As school students, we have known this since primary school, and the Nazis are studied at various points throughout school, in quite extensive detail.

Yet why is political apathy still prevalent amongst young people?
Why are racist attacks still happening?

The lessons of the Holocaust have not properly been learnt.

This is why we, Ceri Mawson and Frances Johnson, year 12 students at Harrogate Grammar School, decided to sign up for the Lessons from Auschwitz Project, organised by the Holocaust Education Trust.

It consists of three parts: An orientation seminar; a visit to Auschwitz, lasting just a day; a follow-up seminar; and next steps, or in other words teaching others about the Holocaust.

The orientation seminar took place on the 12th February 2008.
Two representatives from most of the schools in the Yorkshire area were there, as well as a lot of teachers including Mr Kirk, the teacher from our school, people from the Holocaust Education Trust, and the press.

The intention of the first seminar was to prepare us, both physically and mentally, for the day trip to Auschwitz, Poland.

As well as deciding upon the logistics of wearing thermals on a plane, we discussed what we were expecting from a visit to such a horrific place and what questions we hoped the trip would answer.

Mr. John Chillag, an Auschwitz survivor and incredibly brave man, spoke to us about his experience there. The actual trip to Auschwitz took place on the 21st February.

It began very early in the morning, and a plane full of school children arrived in Krakow still early in the morning.
We travelled to different places within Oswiecim, the Polish town given the German name of Auschwitz by the invading Nazis.

Our group visited an old Jewish cemetery, in an attempt to 'rehumanise' the victims of the Holocaust - showing that there was a thriving Jewish community in Oswiecim before World War II.

However, a frightening Neo-Nazi movement within Poland has twice desecrated the graveyard in the past two years, so the cemetery is now locked.

The tombstones had been taken by the Nazis in WWII for paving slabs within the town, and so eerily after the war they were placed back in the cemetery but very haphazardly; some rested against walls or trees, more in the wrong places and a few even upside-down.

We then travelled to Auschwitz I, which wasn't a place solely for extermination as Auschwitz II (also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau) was.
It was also a place for slave labour, for the German war effort. There were many barracks, and what was essentially a museum around the camp.

We saw the famous 'Arbeit Macht Frei' sign (which means 'work makes you free' - a falsity here).

We saw many horrific things, including items collected by the Nazis from their victims, such as spectacles, saucepans and shoes.

We also saw the home of the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höß.
He lived with his wife and five children, just yards from a gas chamber.

In addition to this, we saw his gallows where he was hung as a result of his deplorable actions.

We left Auschwitz I and travelled in the warm bus to Auschwitz Birkenau, most of us silent thinking about the horrible things we had seen and what had happened during the Nazi rule.

The mood seemed completely different to that of Auschwitz I; we climbed up the guard tower to see the vast camp, hundreds of wooden buildings laid row after row on either side of the notorious train line.

Our guide then took us inside one of the bunkers. The inside was dingy and they were hardly warmer than outside but there seemed to be enough slanted wooden bunk beds to fit around 50 people in at the most.

However, the Nazi's had nearly 1.5 million people at that camp; 50 people per bunker was nowhere near enough.

Around 1000 people ate, slept and lived in each garage-sized hut.
We left the bunker and visited the toilets, or rather the holes in concrete. There was no privacy and no time to use the toilets in Auschwitz.

Degradingly, thousands of people had to go to the toilet in only a few minutes, and if they were too slow the guards beat them and because of the awful conditions, many had illnesses that meant they needed to use the toilet more often than was possible.

As we walked through the huge grounds along the railway we realized just how scary it must have felt to travel in there, not knowing what was going to happen to you when you arrived.

Often old and sick people fell out of the carriages of the train as there was a lack of food and water and they had to stand for hours on end. At the end of the track we came to where those innocent people were divided into two groups.

Usually it was women with children, sick and old on one side and men, young women and strong boys on the other side.

This was where the decision was ultimately made who would be sent to the gas chambers and who would have to work and live day after day in those horrible bunkers.

We were read a reading from a Holocaust survivor at that point which made most of us think how awful it must have been for those brought here.

The thought of being separated from the ones you love and to never see them again was too terrible to imagine.

We then were taken across a memorial path and to the crematorium and gas chambers. However the Nazi's had destroyed them both as a cover up of the Holocaust.

The ruins of those dreadful things will always be a reminder to us of what happened at Auschwitz and of all the people that lost their lives there.

We then went to a place the Nazi's called Canada where all the shoes and bags and suitcases were collected. Instead they have now made a display of pictures of many of the families that were sent to Birkanau.

Following that we had a memorial service given by a Rabbi, again there was stories and messages from survivors and then the Rabbi sang a hymn to us in Hebrew.

It was a time for us all to reflect on what we had seen that day and to think about those who lost their lives there. We were also able to realize how important it is that this must never happen again.

A week later we all travelled back to Leeds for our follow up seminar. We were all discussing both the trip and the feelings we had experienced afterwards.

It was interesting to see that many people reacted very differently to what they were expecting.

We also discussed our task to increase awareness of the Holocaust and of any type of bullying that may spiral into something so terrible like Auschwitz.

Our time spent in Auschwitz and Berkanau was extremely difficult and upsetting. However, without trips like this we would not know or understand the importance of remembering this terrible time like we do.

Many people believe that Auschwitz should be destroyed due to its horrible nature and the fear of a sanctuary being built by neo-Nazis there.

However, without this memorial there is the possibility of forgetting the past and when we forget a terrible history like the Holocaust are we not inevitably going to repeat it?