My name is Pauline Riehl and I am a sixteen years old. I am from Frankfurt, Germany.

When our teacher introduced us to the Project "My adopted soldier" I did not expect it to be that emotional and informative. We had the chance to meet students from Ireland and exchange our knowledge about the first world war.

Every Student prepared a presentation about their soldier and we presented them to each other. We visited the graves from the soldiers who died in world war one and many students got overwhelmed with emotions. Sadly, I did not have the chance to visit the grave of my soldier.

We also had the chance to visit a trench which, for me personally, was one of the highlights of the trip because you had the chance to see the home of thousands of soldiers during world war one. Those soldiers lived together in a super small space without any possibility to relax. They lived in fear the whole time and I don’t want to imagine how hard this time was for all of them.

Before this project I had a basic knowledge of the first world war, but I feel like this project was a great chance to learn more about history and also to get a closer connection to what happened back then. For me personally, the project helped me realise the major impacts of a war.

Random numbers of the people who died in world war one became real for me, because we visited many graveyards where thousands of soldiers rest. I think it is so important to know what happened back then and I think this project was a perfect way to gain experiences and also to exchange knowledge with students from around the world.