Lesson of Memory and Humanity: Excursion to Auschwitz-Birkenau

On November 8, 2025, students of the Polish Campus of Kyiv Medical University visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. This place has become a symbol of the most horrific crimes of World War II and the inhuman suffering of millions of people. The Auschwitz concentration camp was established by the Nazis in 1940 and consisted of three main parts: Auschwitz I — the administrative center, Auschwitz II–Birkenau — the extermination camp where gas chambers and crematoria operated, and Auschwitz III–Monowitz — a labor camp serving nearby industrial plants. More than 1.1 million people were killed there, about 90% of them Jews. The gas chambers operated with horrifying efficiency — up to 2,000 people were murdered in a single “cycle.”

During the excursion, students saw the infamous gate with the inscription “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work makes you free”), the prisoners’ barracks, and rooms displaying personal belongings of the victims — suitcases with names, eyeglasses, shoes, human hair, and even teeth. We stood by the execution wall near Block 11, where death sentences were carried out, and visited the preserved gas chamber and crematorium. The most striking impression for the medical students was the information about the medical experiments conducted in the camp, particularly those led by Dr. Josef Mengele, who became a symbol of inhumane and cruel experiments on people. Here, science and medicine were turned into instruments of destruction.

This trip left a deep mark on everyone’s heart. In the silence of Auschwitz, we could feel the breath of history and the unbearable weight of human suffering. This place speaks without words — about pain and death, but also about the importance of remembrance. “Those who forget the past are doomed to relive it.”

32621b05-ae51-4544-932b-01554506e83f

9C8A0557-6003-405D-9AC1-784F90486712

IMG_8463

IMG_8462

IMG_8461

IMG_8455

IMG_8447