"IT'S time to look at the darkness and spread the light," says Rabbi Raphy Garson, as almost 200 pupils from Scottish schools, joined by Education Secretary John Swinney, gathered in the dark at the end of Birkenau's infamous railway tracks - the line which took trainloads of Jews to their deaths.
The ruins of Crematoria II lie close by.
It was here that the Nazis deployed hope as weapon - people herded into the gas chambers were encouraged to believe they were simply showering before being admitted to a concentration camp, clutching on to dreams of one day seeing family members again.
It was only in their final moments that they realised they faced their death.
Rabbi Garson, on behalf of the Holocaust Educational Trust, addressed the group as part of a memorial service for the six million Jewish men, women and children who were killed in the Holocaust.
It culminated in the lighting of dozens of candles along the tracks.
"Today should not only be an act of remembrance, but more importantly, a remembrance to act," he says.
"It's flippant to say never again. Never again is happening in our world today.
"It can only occur if it's never forgotten and we learn the lesson from the past."
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