Some stories, no matter how hard to tell, are worth telling.
Coventry high sophomore John Minnick went on a four-week European educational tour to several locations, one of which was Auschwitz in Germany.
Visiting the remains of the concentration camps and talking to a survivor of the Holocaust, Minnick learned first-hand the horrors of what happened there in the 1940s. The experience was difficult to taken in but made a lasting impression.
Possibly harder was retelling what he experienced. Asked by his former teacher Toni Nuosce to speak in front of her freshman history class, Minnick agreed to share what he witnessed.
Recounting what the survivor told him about the camps brought a lively and joking class to complete silence.
“He told us about watching as a family and friends would be split up and they would see them be put right into the crematories,” he said.
The experiments done on the survivor were just as unthinkable.
“He had his skin turned pink from the chemical experiments done to him,” Minnick said.
Just being in the rooms where the prisoners were tortured and killed were hard to handle according to Minnick.
“Probably the most depressing part of the trip,” he said. “You could see the holes where the canisters (of gas) were dropped in.”
The atmosphere of the tour was very serious Minnick remembered, with little to no talking and no laughing. He said one person was so upset over what she was seeing she couldn't stop crying and went back to the bus instead of finishing the tour.
As hard as it was to take in, Minnick was glad he went.
“While the experience was educational, yes, it was very depressing,” he said.
Minnick went on the trip thanks to People to People Student Ambassadors, where students are nominated by a teacher in the school. Several were nominated, but Minnick was the only Coventry to go on the trip. Besides Auschwitz, Minnick visited Lithuania, Poland, St. Petersburg, Russia, Estonia and Warsaw, Germany.
John's mother Karen came to listen to her son talk in class because he refused to tell her about that part of the trip.
“When he'd call on the phone, he'd be too choked up to talk about it,” Karen said. “He'd say, 'I can't talk about it, it's too depressing.'”
John brought in all of the photos he took on the trip and books he bought about the Auschwitz.
The class was full of questions and comments for John about his experience.
John said he is glad he went, but he would never go back.
“It made me feel how good I have it,” he said. “I have a different outlook on life now.”
