Students and Adults from Csorna visit Auschwitz 2025
Jews settled in Csorna in the 18th century. Before World War II, nearly 800 Jewish citizens lived here integrated into the local society. A good example of this, a drop in the ocean, is the cultural mission of the Csorna Israelite Penny Society, the history of which was presented by students of the Hunyadi János Technical College in Csorna for the student contest organised by the Jewish Roots in Győr Public Benefit Foundation 2023-24.
Tragedy struck the local Jewish community in May 1944, when the Hungarian authorities forced its members into a ghetto. From there, they were deported to Auschwitz.
The students of the János Hunyadi Technical School in Csorna, led by Balázs Szalay, history teacher, made a pilgrimage to the former Auschwitz death camp for the 12th time on 16 February 2025, this time on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp. The first group of students from Csorna visited the camp in May 2015. A total of 423 people took part in the visits, including 288 students from the Hunyadi.
The most recent group included the former mayor of Csorna and Member of Parliament, József Papp, who published a report of the trip onthe site inforabakoz.hu on 20 February 2025. This is quoted in full:
József Papp: In the last few days we have seen the beautiful and the terrible
Balázs Szalay, history teacher at the János Hunyadi Technical School in Csorna, has been organizing the Krakow-Auschwitz trip for interested students for more than ten years with the help of his colleague Zsolt Vódli from Sopron. We have already reported about previous trips on the site “Inforábaköz” based on the students’ experiences. Depending on the possibilities of participation, the group is also open to adults and outsiders. That’s how I was included in this year’s travelling group.
Two tiring but unforgettable days.
On the first day in Krakow, we saw a real modern-day metropolis, proud of its history, its royal castle, its unrivalled main square, its centuries-old university, the former Archbishop of Krakow Karol Wojtyla, who became Pope John Paul II, and the memory of the former Jewish population of Galicia, who were almost completely exterminated in the Second World War. We have seen the iconic locations of Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. We Hungarians remembered Hedvig, daughter of King Louis the Great of Hungary, who became Queen of Poland under the name Jadviga and left her fortune on her death to re-found the Academy of Cracow, and István Báthory, Prince of Transylvania, who was King of Poland for 11 years from 1575. A Polish king who is still revered and respected by Poles to this day. We had the chance to stop in front of the memorial plaque to Bálint Balassi (Hungarian poet in the 16th century – ed.).
On the second day we visited Auschwitz. In the concentration camp, we were confronted with the fact that it is one thing to know about something, but quite another to be confronted with it in person. To see the cold barracks, the barbed wire, the miserable cells, the former execution sites, the shorn hair, shoes, clothes, personal belongings and photographs of the people who were killed, to walk through the gas chambers and the only remaining crematorium. To walk along the tracks, where many of the deportees never reached alive, having died in the wagons on the way, and most of those who did arrive were immediately sent to the gas chambers. Those who were selected for forced labour suffered inhuman conditions for several months before their deaths. To read on the sign that 1 million 1 hundred thousand people were killed here, 400 thousand of whom were Hungarians. The monumental structures and instruments of destruction and death.
On the way home, I asked my travelling companions to sum up their impressions in a few sentences and send them to me. Here please read some of them:
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, wrote the Spanish-born American philosopher George Santayana. I’m trying to process yesterday… During the hike, I felt sick to my stomach, tears were falling, I wanted to run away, but I knew I had to face the past. Yesterday has left a deep mark and I believe that the power of remembering helps us to learn, to become more empathetic and to build a better future. Thank you all for being with us on this journey – the shared experiences and conversations helped us to process what we saw.”
“In recent days we have seen the beautiful and the terrible. A wonderful city that is growing and full of life. Another site that only recalls hopelessness, destruction and end. We were enriched by an experience and on the other side we saw what should NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. Thank you for allowing me to participate and thank you to those who organised and did everything possible to make the trip a success.”
“Thanks to the excellent organisation of two great professors, we had a great time. The sights of the city were professionally guided, and every detail was taken care of. The films shown on the way there and back helped us to understand the history and importance of the place.
Before the memorial trip, I had already read the recollections of several survivors. From my readings, I had an idea of what to expect. But what I saw in Birkenau was beyond my imagination. The vast camp was divided by a “ramp” on which life and death were decided in a matter of moments. Alongside the existing barracks of the men’s and women’s camps, visitors are shocked by the chimney “forest” of demolished and already collapsed buildings. It shows the true scale of the camp, which, when seen, makes us imagine the hundreds of thousands of people who were forced to live and die innocently in inhumane conditions. It was a refreshing experience to get to know historic Krakow. We got a glimpse of the “bustling” city life in the evening. Thanks to the teachers for the organisation, the useful information and the uploaded material, which complemented and enriched the programme.”
Finally, one more thought. In the camp, the shocking facts and stories told by the guides repeatedly raised the question: how can humans do this? Were they even human?
I am sure of one thing. It is not that ‘by chance’ Germany was then home to a generation of inhumane, sadistic people, as never before or since. Germany, defeated in the First World War, was bleeding from a thousand wounds, with countless seemingly insoluble problems. And then along came an initially small but rapidly growing far-right political force that lied that it would solve the problems. It had no solution, but it did name ‘those responsible’ for making the German people suffer. At first it was the Jews, then everyone who was not Aryan. And as this force grew, it became more and more violent and cruel.
There is no dividing line that we can draw between democracy before and dictatorship now. At first you think it doesn’t affect you; it doesn’t bother you, but it spreads day-by-day, month-by-month, and one day it reaches everyone. Then, when the out-of-control power, with its hate propaganda, takes over everything, the leader gradually becomes a dictator, hope becomes terror, the sympathiser becomes a fanatic, the determined follower becomes a murderer. The increasingly cruel, brutal, evil-minded power will elevate, tolerate or crush. To submit is easy because it promises an easy (albeit false) solution, but to resist is extremely risky. But a choice must be made. Even if it is dangerous. Not everyone in Germany was a Nazi. There were resistants, rescuers of Jews, simple decent people. They had to choose. They resisted even in the death camp. You can’t blame everything on circumstances.
The poem we met on the trip is also about this issue, written by Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996.
Twenty-seven bones
Thirty-five muscles
Nearly two thousand nerve cells
They are in all five fingertips.
That’s more than enough
To type “Mein Kampf”
Or “Pooh Bear”.
Post Scriptum: Is any resemblance to the world today purely coincidental? That’s why everyone should visit Auschwitz at least once in their lifetime.
Edition and English translation by Péter Krausz