CHILDREN from every sixth form in Dorset will visit the Nazi death camp Auschwitz, Schools Minister and South Dorset MP Jim Knight announced yesterday.

He thinks it will help them understand modern day genocides like Darfur, and to understand why Israel was formed.

They will meet survivors and tour the vast camp barracks, and see piles of documents and personal belongings dating to the camp's liberation in 1945.

The children will tell classmates about the camp, where more than six million Jews and other people the Nazis classed as undesirables were killed.

Mr Knight said every school in Britain would spend £100 sending two sixth formers, and the government would provide the other £200.

"It's been something the Holocaust Educational Trust has done for a little while.

"It's important to learn how this was cold-blooded, industrial killing.

"From it you can learn about other genocides - like the Balkans, Darfur or Rwanda.

"And it wasn't just Jews, but other people like gypsies, trade unionists and gay people.

"So it might help people deal with homophobic bullying today or discrimination against gypsies."

He added: "I went with about 200 young people from London, including some Jewish children and children from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds.

"What struck me was that it added to their understanding of the formation of Israel and the psychology behind the Jewish state, which will add to their understanding of the Middle East."

Students taking part will fly to Poland at 5am and return the same day at 10pm.

Bournemouth Holocaust survivor Mark Goldfinger 78, who was in five different camps from 1941 to 1945, said: "Children today don't know anything about it. In Europe, it's different.

"You see coach loads of children there - from France, Holland, Switzerland and Poland - on a regular basis.

"If a person hasn't been there they have very little understanding of it."