GCSE year trip to auschwitz - any experience?

Fascinating thread. Yesterday a friend put a graphic novel through my door. It's called A Family Secret and is about a Dutch girl and her German Jewish friend before and during the war. It is seen through the eyes of the Dutch girl's grandson in the present day who is looking through her attic and comes across his grandmother belongings. She takes him on a journey back in time. It is beautifully drawn and written. Feels totally authentic and was moving and informative without being horrific. I would recommend this to a teenager and totally agree with mothermountaingoat about looking into understanding and celebrating Jewish life and religion as well.

It's written by Eric Heuvel and published by the Anne Frank Museum. ISBN number: 90-72972-00-7

not participating in the trip is unlikely to have any negative effect on your dd's history studies. She needs obviously to know about these crimes but she does not need to personally visit a concentration camp IMO

i went to Sachsenhausen which was not a "death camp" or murder factory as such. Nevertheless of course many died there due to poor nutrition (i.e. starvation), disease, torture and experimentation. I went with my Polish friend whose grandmother had been sent there for handing a piece of bread to a Jewish man who came to her door asking for food. She starved to death there. Ther is not much left standing, markings on the ground to show where barracks were etc. Nevertheless quite harrowing enough

OP I organised the trip for Y13; I personally would have reservations about my own going at your DD's age with the school. I was OK with my son going because I was there.

The students spent the evening before the visit going to Schindler's factory, looking around the old Jewish quarter in Krakow and having supper in a Jewish restaurant. So a mini version of the sort of thing MotherMountainGoat is suggesting (we had time constraints). Immediately after the trip they were actively encouraged to go shopping, to break the mood, it seemed healthy to me.

When I went to Auschwitz in 1993 one of the most upsetting things was the attitude of the visiting groups of Polish teenagers - laughing, playing around, in one case they were posing in front of the wall where prisoners had been executed, and staging mock executions. Massively bad taste, and I assume it was because they hadn't chosen to go on these trips but had to go as part of a compulsory curriculum.

I'm not suggesting your daughter's group would do anything like that, but it does indicate to me that when groups go to concentration camps they need to be a bit older, 16 or 17, and it should be entirely voluntary with no pressure to take part.

My kids are growing up in Germany - there is a concentration camp (Sachsenhausen) about 30 miles away which I went to many years ago. I don't think DD1 at 12 would be ready for it yet, and Auschwitz, as a location for industrialised mass-murder, is much more traumatic than that one. I don't know at which age they 'cover' Nazism and the Holocaust in school, but it certainly hasn't been mentioned yet.

I also think it's a shame that they would be going only to Auschwitz without seeing the other side of Jewish culture in Germany and Eastern Europe - it's much more instructive and worthwhile to combine it with a visit to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, for instance, which emphasises Jewish life and religion over hundreds of years in Europe; that for me somehow makes the devastating loss all the more real and tragic, but it's also important that the Jewish people in Germany are not solely seen as 'victims'.

Thanks, and I'm sorry to have waded into sensitivities about which I know so little. That is a beautiful tale of reciprocal aid, despite the awful sadness.

My father-in-law's family, too, suffered at the hands of the Soviets. They were taken to Siberia, I think, remained there some time in great fear until pressure from the British once the USSR had entered the war, and then subjected to years of painful travelling in Iran and India before eventually ending up in Britain.

Workwork thank you for that. My generation has no reason to feel they were touched by the War but growing up we watched the pain of the Polish non-Jewish generation which were, even if we didn't recognise that that's what it was. That pain wasn't, in our family at last, segregated into racial groups. My father's family was hidden by a Jewish family when the Soviets came in from the East. My grandfather then sheltered the same Jewish family when the Germans came in. There was a mutual risking of life, not a sense of them and us. I'm sure that the old man's pain wouldn't have been intended to belittle the pain of anyone else.

Thank you for your explanation, it was full and gracious.

Total brainfail. The author is Eva Hoffman. I mixed her up with a whole other woman.

I do recommend the book.

(I didn't mean to cross out that name, Gillian Schlomo, though google seems not to recognise it so I must have got it wrong.)

I'm sorry that my post was upsetting, Yellowstone. I didn't mean to attribute any ambivalence to the man, of course. I was thinking more to do with the vexed way in which personal trauma always has to be experienced within a social and political context: I don't mean the Polish context; I mean the international significance that Auschwitz has.

I really do apologise for any offence. I'm not from a Polish family, no. My husband is Anglo-Polish.

The book that I always have in mind when I think about the horror that was inflicted on Poland when the Nazis made it the location for this atrocity is a book called Shtetl I think by someone called Gillian Schlomo which paints Poland's status as Europe's first truly multicultural society, with a very rich mutually nourishing culture of interaction. I'm not sure what you thought I might have meant by the 'tortured national consciousness'. I don't know how a nation could be other than traumatised by having such a past inflicted on it.

I am sorry for having accidentally injected a note of controversy onto the thread. I was stuck by what the man said. He was pained, genuinely pained, in a way that has stayed with me for years, by the possibility of a category of victims being absent from the mind of international visitors.

And if you take victims (other than military) of Nazis outside of the concentration camps, the overall figure for holocaust victims could be as high as 17 million, which would in fact put the (still enormous) 6 million jewish figure not in the majority.

It is not a competition, and so many many people suffered it is impossible to compute, but each of these groups deserves to be and should be remembered.

I remember being very surprised and shocked and touched by the british memorial in Mauthausen. I'd had no idea that british people were also sent there. Many POW and I think over 70 nationalities suffered in concentration camps. I think people should know and understand this too.

I think that's right Ernest.
My Grandfather was Polish and escaped, his entire family having been killed. There were quite a few where we lived as they gravitated to work down the pits.

They were always at odds to point out just how many poles had been slguhtered by the nazis. Not to denigrate from the jews, more because they felt they and their dead loved ones had been forgotton.

OP, I don't know how old your dd is - what is 1st yr GCSE - 14? I think it really depends on the sensitivity of the child and their maturity. I think my ds is very sensitive and it would severly traumatise him. Mind you, he is only 11 still. We live in Germany, quite close to Dachau so he will be taken with the school, as every Germany child has to visit a concentration camp.

I would deem this trip for your dd non-essential, and I wouldn't feel pressured into feeling you ought to send her.

Is there a jewish museum somewhere near where you live? I bet that would adequately summarise the information. Visiting one for real obviously gives such a real perspective of the sheer daunting size and scale. I visited Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria when I was 16. It left a deep impression on me, but I don't think this would necessarily be necessary for school work.

I would like to say one thing though -

The vast majority of the holocaust weren't jewish though. There were approximately 11 million holocaust victims in total, 6 million were jewish, so a majority figure, and certainly the single largest group, but 5 million victims were not jewish, millions of Poles, Soviets, Romani, homosexual, handicapped, political, many who hadn't done anything 'wrong' at all, but they looked funny at someone or pissed off their neighbour.

I don't see it as a rivalry, more as a need for recognition and understanding that so many people, I think Poles being the 2nd largest group, suffered so terribly.

Wordwork I cannot imagine for a single moment there was any intention in his mind at rivalry, nothing more than remembering each and every victim of the Holocaust, of whom the vast majority were, of course, Jewish. That is a truly awful thing to attribute to the old man (and by extension to all Poles). Perhaps you come from a Polish family who feels that way (though I would be very surprised at any non-Jewish Polish feeling that way); I most certainly don't.

I am sure that each family who had its older generation killed in the camps faces similar issues and I find it shows a huge disrepect to all those who fought and were killed, whether they were killed for reasons of politics, race or anything else. It also shows huge insensitivity to the feelings of their families who are as capable of feeling empathy for the Jewish plight as anyone else, perhaps more so.

I don't quite understand your last sentence about the Polish national consciousness either.

Anyhow, a deeply upsetting post, about as bad as it gets.

Curtaincall, yes, the effects of such secondary trauma must be large -- and perhaps felt more immediately in older age, because earlier memories start to come to the fore then, and have more vividity sometimes than the present. I hope your researches help you and your family live with this awful past.

I went there years ago, only a short while after Poland became more open to visits from foreigners. My guide was an older Polish man, not Jewish, probably a volunteer. He was very good, spoke with great sensitivity and humanity and feeling. The thing that struck me about him most, though, and something I still feel uncomfortable about now, is that one of his first remarks was to ask us to keep in mind not only the millions of Jewish victims but also the thousands of non-Jewish Polish victims. When the Germans moved into Poland swathes of opposition, and of the liberal/professional class generally were imprisoned and killed. I am sure that his reminder was given without any lack of respect for the vastly greater numbers of Jewish victims, and I can certainly understand the need for remembering all victims, but I felt pained by what seemed a little like a kind of rivalry for acknowledgement of suffering. It seemed sad that it was there, though I do understand its importance to him. I'm sure that Polish national consciousness around the Holocaust is still very tortured.

curtaincall this silence seems to have been absolutely standard. I think you are absolutely right about secondary trauma. Not just amongst Jewish survivors but all sorts of other displaced survivors too. I also experienced it first hand but never thought about it as a child or teenager or even a young adult; it's taken years to make sense of the idiosyncrasies of my father.

I assume that there must be, or must have been, a very brave and unusual old man who volunteered as a guide. But there were only a tiny number of Jewish people left in Poland after the War, very few of whom would have chosen to live near Auschwitz for obvious reasons. Today, anyone old enough to remember their experience of Auschwitz would be most unlikely to be fit enough to take tours around, even if they felt emotionally able.

If you feel inclined to visit Auschwitz then you should. Don't be put off by the 'tourism'. It's not promoted by the museum itself, it merely means large groups arriving together on coaches but I think no one would go there without an underlying intention to pay their respect. I just moved away from the groups. If you go at the cold, bleak times of year there will be less people anyway.

yellowstone - I read an article in a sunday magazine ages ago about an old man who worked there as a volunteer. Maybe he was just on call to help out when needed? My siblings and I thought of visiting but decided against it in the end. Apart from everything, I think the 'tourism' aspect mentioned in wordwork's previous post would be upsetting.

wordwork - thank you for your kind post. Many families like ours couldn't talk about what happened as it was too difficult, so in a way it was covered over and it's only recently I've been able to reach out and talk about this. My mother was brought up with adults visiting with numbers on their arm and talking about what happened to them. I think there was a lot of secondary trauma and survivor's guilt for this generation. I found photographs of her grandparents and aunts to show her but she just handed them straight back. Suppose she'd just buried all these terrible things. xx

curtaincall no survivor will be giving guided tours. The guides are mostly young students of history. There is much to be said for walking about on one's own, there is a huge amount of information on boards and plaques.

curtaincall, I am so sorry to hear about your mother's family. I can't imagine what it must be like growing up with that sad knowledge of your family's past.

xx

I suppose it does depend on the child. I understand that in Germany, it has been part of the curriculum for every child to visit a camp and though they are now very well informed, would worry about the guilt imposed on a generation of young people.

I have been researching websites last week on Auschwitz, as my mother's entire family were murdered there apart from her father and one aunt. Looking at photographs and reading personal accounts of survivors was very affecting and for a child maybe more so even if they have no personal connection. Maybe an actual visit and a guided tour with someone who was a survivor (I think there are volunteers who work there) would be amazingly informative but, again, you know your child best. Would agree about Primo Levi - I still have strong recall of some passages 20 years later.

I can understand the frustration (anger, even) at hearing school parties larking about.

My sister took a school trip to France and visited a WWI cemetery. Her colleague lost his temper with a boy who kept on laughing and sneering at others being upset. The teacher made the mistake of grabbing the boy and... the teacher ended up being suspended and left the school.

The reaction to a visit to Auschwitz will be very individual. It may depend on sensitivity, prior knowledge, family background - a host of different factors. Having been once, with my elder children and elderly (Polish) father, on my second visit with the school I watched the reaction of the Y13 students very carefully. Some (I have to say proobably the brightest) were extraordinarily moved and looked beyond the tourist aspect of the groups going round (we deliberately opted for the students wandering freely, without a guide). A few were less visibly moved, but the visit left no student untouched. I think Auschwitz is harder to take if a visitor has previously read a biography of a survivor. I personally felt sick when I heard the noise and laughter of a group of school children coming from the watchtower at Birkenau. Some children are simply too young.

I agree being upset is right. However some children will be affected much more deeply. Some in a good way but some in a disturbed way. If there was a chance my child might fall into the latter I would leave it. That's not to say you don't study the subject - which in itself may be upsetting - but I don't think study at that level would cause deep disturbance a visit might.

I say that as a Mum whose intelligent son has, in the past, suffered months of nightmares following a visit to somewhere not even half as harrowing.

I would not make a child go through that experience for the chance of a different exam grade, purely because it is so harrowing. Children have sat GCSEs since time in memorial including the subject without going in person.

I think of a visit there as more than a learning experience, it's an emotional one and the person has to be able to cope with that. The school should ensure those not going receive the education to support the syllabus wether they go or not (assuming this is a paid trip).

In short, I would encourage a child under normal circumstances to go on GCSE trips but Aushwitz is not one of them. If the child isn't ready, then so be it.

I don?t mean to offend anyone but shouldn?t a visit to Auschwitz be upsetting? I think I?d be more worried if teenage DCs weren?t at all upset, to be honest.

OP you say you want to give your daughter free rein but also that what her peers are doing will have a bearing, so clearly other people are having an influence on her decision. If she really doesn?t want to go, I wouldn?t make her, I?m sure it won?t harm her GCSE prospects in the slightest. But don?t let her friends choose for her.