The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams will tomorrow visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp for the first time, accompanied by the Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks.

The Archbishop and Chief Rabbi will be joined also by leaders of the Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i, Sikh and Zoroastrian faiths for the day-long visit, the first of its kind.

The faith leaders will visit the site of one of the worst mass exterminations carried out against the Jewish people as guests of the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz Project. They will accompany a group of 180 school students aged 16 or more along with their teacher.

“The visit by the UK’s faith leaders will demonstrate their solidarity in standing against the extremes of hostility and genocide which Auschwitz – Birkenau represents and which are represented in Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda in modern times,” said a spokesman for the trust.

Over the past 12 months the trust has taken more than 2,000 students on day visits to Auschwitz in an attempt to teach them the lessons represented by the Holocaust.

Dr Williams said: “Auschwitz, as many have said, reduces us to silence. But to say this and no more is to shy away from the challenge it poses. If we are truly committed to hearing and learning, we have no choice but to seek to grow in our ability to identify where these are present today. Our hope is that in making this journey together we also travel towards the God who binds us together in protest and grief at this profanation.”

Sir Jonathan Sacks said: “The Holocaust did not happen far away, in some distant time and in another kind of civilisation. It happened in the heart of enlightened Europe in a country that prided itself on its art, its culture, its philosophy and ethics. However painful it is, we must learn what happened, that it may never happen again to anyone, whatever their colour, culture or creed. We cannot change the past, but by remembering the past, we can change the future.”

Now in its 10th year, the Lessons from Auschwitz Project is based on the premise that “hearing is not like seeing”.

The faith leaders, who will include a representative from the Muslim Council of Britain, have already met together twice this year. First they came together at Lambeth Palace in London to host a visit by the Dalai Lama. They also joined in July’s Walk of Witness in London during the Anglican Communion’s Lambeth Conference to campaign for the Millennium Development Goals.

Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: “The Lessons from Auschwitz Project is an integral part of the Holocaust Educational Trust’s work as it gives participants the opportunity to develop a greater understanding of the dangers and potential effects of prejudice and racism today.”

The students and faith leaders will be shown several barracks at Auschwitz I – registration documents of inmates, piles of hair, shoes, clothes and other items seized from the prisoners as they entered the camps. They will then be taken the short distance to Birkenau, the site that most people associate with the word “Auschwitz” and where the vast majority of victims were murdered.

The remnants of barracks, crematoria and gas chambers are in stark contrast to Auschwitz I. The visit will culminate with a ceremony held next to the destroyed crematoria II including readings, a moment of reflection and ending with all participants lighting memorial candles and placing them around the remains of the crematoria.