Paul Monham, Year 12, Mascalls School

"As most of it is left intact it makes the concept of walking around Auschwitz, where prisoners and Nazi soldiers were 60 years before us even more chilling. Hooks on walls where two people would be hanged at a time while their shoulders dislocated. A shooting wall where whole families were made to line up and wait while they witnessed the others being shot.

"It's hard to believe that it can get any worse than this, but as we reach Birkenau, it becomes evident that it can. This is the camp that prisoners were sent to be killed. If they were sent here, they didn't come back. We visit the gas chambers, the ruins of the crematorium where the bodies were burnt in large numbers and the wooden buildings where the prisoners 'lived' if you can call it that. "Sometimes 12 people to a bed. It really is sickening to think that something like this happened.

"After going to Auschwitz, it's really changed my outlook on that period of history and although I would never choose to go again, it has been a life changing experience. I always knew that Auschwitz was a place that you could never truly understand unless you actually went and saw it for yourself. Even now, it's hard to explain. Words can't express what evil went on there. But if you ever get a chance to go there and see it for yourself, take it. It will change your life."