TWO students from Haslingden High School took part in a special Holocaust Memorial commemoration at County Hall in Preston.
Molly Harris and Shannon Spencer, both 17 from Year 13, attended Lancashire County Council where they met Holocaust survivor Stephen Breuer and they gave a talk.
Mr Breuer was only a young boy in 1944 when he was among 3,000 Hungarian Jews rounded up and taken to a factory shed next to Pápa Railway Station.
He explained: “We stayed there for about three days, then the trains arrived to take people to Auschwitz, although nobody knew where they were going at that point.”
Just 51 people escaped the journey to Auschwitz-Birkenau – including Stephen and his family.
Last year Molly and Shannon went on a trip to Auschwitz- Birkenau in Poland as part of Lessons From Auschwitz programme organised by the Holocaust Memorial Trust
Molly said: “We wrote an application explaining why we wanted to go and went to seminar where we met Holocaust survivor Zigi Shipper then in November went to Auschwitz and we had to plan our own journey.”
They flew to Poland and went on a long coach journey. They visited a Jewish synagogue and met the Rabbi and then went to Auschwitz and Birkenau.
Molly said: “Birkenau was really surreal and the ground was all white from the ashes. We are now preparing a project in school.
“Going there makes you realise that these are actual people and not just numbers.
“My grandfather is Jewish and my dad is and it made me realise that their religion almost died out completely.”
Molly hopes to become a history teacher while Shannon would like to be a human rights lawyer.