Remembering and Reflecting: Students’ Insights from the Holocaust Gallery

Published by Eltham College on Friday 17th of October 2025

Remembering and Reflecting: Students’ Insights from the Holocaust Gallery

Visiting the Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust Gallery is a powerful and emotional experience that brings history to life. For Year 11 students, this visit offered a chance to reflect on the stories of those who suffered and survived during one of history’s darkest periods. The following reflections capture their responses, insights, and the impact of witnessing these stories. 

Jayden: Visiting the Holocaust exhibition at the Imperial War Museum was a really powerful experience. It helped me to understand the real impact of Nazi ideology before starting the coursework I will soon be doing on the topic. Seeing the many personal stories and belongings of the victims in the exhibition made everything feel much more real and emotional. It made me think about how easily hatred and propaganda can be spread, and why it’s so important to learn from this part of history. 

Barney: This trip was one of the most enlightening and terrifying experiences I have had. From the very start of the gallery, every single item that I saw was difficult to look at. Even photographs of Jewish families enjoying themselves throughout the early 20th century were tinged by the knowledge that it is likely that nearly every single person in the image died a violent and undignified death. It is sometimes difficult to truly feel the tragedy that was the Holocaust through mere numbers, but the number of personal effects of the victims really helped to show that behind every single one of those figures is a person with a life equally, if not significantly more, complex than my own. 

Thea: The trip to the Imperial War Museum highlighted the importance of the Holocaust as an event and helped us to understand the outcomes and reasons behind it. The exhibition was intended to tell the stories of the victims and survivors, emphasising their normal lives. To end, we were able to listen to unedited accounts from survivors, giving us a more personal view on their individual experiences and the experiences of others. The presentation of objects throughout shows the value of personal possessions and meanings behind them. 

Naomi: I found the day incredibly helpful towards deepening my understanding of how the Holocaust came to happen. The museum showed how smaller factors built up over time, to create such a horrific person. The Imperial War Museum made a great effort to present the victims of the Holocaust to be no different to people that go about their day today. This is what I found most upsetting — these were just people who became victims of jealousy and hate. What really struck me was not just the scale of the Holocaust but the deliberate force behind it. The research the Nazis did to ‘prove’ if someone was Aryan showed how intentional and systematic their actions were.