TEENAGERS from Wiltshire were left emotionally stunned when they visited the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The South West group included eight pupils from John of Gaunt School in Trowbridge; St Mary’s School in Calne; Sheldon School in Chippenham and the Royal Wootton Bassett Academy.

Auschwitz-Birkenau comprises a complex of more than 40 concentration and extermination camps built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II.

The camps near the Polish town of Oświęcim-Brzezinka were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 and are now a major Holocaust memorial to more than 1.1 million people who died there.

Emily Clark, 16, who goes to John of Gaunt School, said: “I can’t really put into words what I have seen. I want people to understand and reflect on the Holocaust and not to be brought down by it.”

Oskar Stepien, 16, another John of Gaunt student, added: “I could not have imagined what has happened here. It is appalling.”

Georga (correct) Coleman, 16, of Sheldon School, said: “I have just been taken aback. It’s unbelievable that this could have really happened. It must have been a real hell on earth. It’s so cold and desolate here.”

Maia Tagholm, 16, also of Sheldon School, added: “It has been so overwhelming to look at the figures, the people’s life history, and their photographs.

“I found it very emotional to hear the personal stories of the people that came here. At the end of the day, they were ordinary people like you and me.”

At the end of the visit by more than 200 children from across the South West, organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust, Jewish Rabbi Andrew Shaw preached a powerful message of peace at Birkenau, where most of the people died.

Rabbi Shaw, chief executive of a UK-based orthodox Zionist movement called Mizrachi, warned that what he called a plague of anti-Semitism is growing again across the world, adding: “It is not just in London, hate is happening all around. We get it from the far left, from the far right, from fundamentalist Islam.

“It is growing and seething and so horrible to see, what you saw today, what the Nazis said about the Jews in 1939, it is being said today. It is disgusting. Words can lead to where you are today.”

He urged the students to “bear witness” to the horrors that anti-Semitism can lead to and to become ambassadors for peace and goodwill to all, adding: “Take the message back to your family and friends; explain to them where hatred ends.”

Auschwitz-Birkenau comprises a complex of more than 40 concentration and extermination camps built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II.

The camps near the Polish town of Oświęcim-Brzezinka were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 and are now a major Holocaust memorial to more than 1.1 million people who died there.