The temperature has dropped dramatically.

We stood silently at the end of the track, 220 of us, with torches and candles and listened as Rabbi Marcus sang a Jewish prayer; his voice rang out over Auschwitz and although the cold hadn't made me shiver, this did.

Some of the students read from hidden letters, which had been found in the wooden barracks where they had been written, down from where we stood.

After prayers we all quietly placed our candles on each side of the track and walked away.

As we walked away I turned back, the tracks which carried people to their deaths had transformed in the dark to an illuminated stairway to heaven.


Is this necessary or relevant after 60 years?

Anti-Semitism is on the increase, even in England, with attacks on Jewish cemeteries reported regularly - denial of the Holocaust has become an almost accepted academic position.

It is a fact that Islamaphobia and neo-Nazism are mere cousins to anti-Semitism.

Rabbi Marcus made the point that in order for human history to survive, education is battling against catastrophe.


I started today with a love letter.

Mirele survived. She had her letter and kept it secret for 50 years.

Here are some of the words she writes to other mothers in the world, her own love letter.

You mothers who are lucky enough to have babies - raise them too. Don't throw them out before they are ready. Don't leave them before they're ready. Go now. Rock them in the sunlight. For my mother.


Those who do not remember history are bound to live through it again. George Santyana.