To have complained to school for showing Schindler's List to yr 9's

[jjazz]

Just that really. Dont know which parts they showed but DD was awake at 11.15 last night -upset as the scenes were still in her head. She is sensitive but not over emotional imo. she was 13 at end of August so is a 'young' year nine although the film is a 15 so none of the group would have been that age.

I agree; I think they do need to know. My father certainly never discussed it; neither did he recover emotionally either. Three marriages were testament to that although in his last he found peace - just a little too late because they only had six years together.

Interestingly up until I was born, he didn't want to go "home". When I was born the wall went up and he couldn't. By the time it came down I think he was beyond wanting.

What is interesting is that almost all the "victims" such as my father were expected to be grateful for life and for escape - that's the impression I was always given. There was, to the best of my knowledge, no offer of counselling or other forms of emotional support although I suppose it must have been there for those who became truly depressed and possibly hospitalised. They were on the whole expected to get on with it.

Auschwitz does advise under 14's should not visit but I don't think that this can be transposed exactly to an age for viewing such material and documentaries. We visited Auschwitz in college, so approx. 16-17 and there simply are no words or comparisons for being in one of the actual sites where these things happened. I would certainly say that under 14's should not really visit (or be well prepared and supported during & after if they do) but that it is not appropriate to apply this same age limit to learning in school with appropriate materials.

I studied German in school and college, we viewed documentaries in high school from approx. 13 which were far more disturbing as you were seeing actual people and actual events but it was well done within the school and was an important part of my school and "life" education.

I showed my class the World at War regarding Genocide last week. They were 12/13...doesnt have an age restriction. It wasnt pleasant but every child watched and listened and we discussed it in more detail later. No one complained and neither did their families as I told them it was in regards to the Holocaust.

i don't think anyone on this thread has said thi stopic shouldn't be coeverd- it's more a question of how it should be covered.

i think covering it in too sensationalist way is wrong. i think too much horrific detail is wrong - it will please those who want to read real-life horror stories rather than a history to learn from.

Edgar - I agree with you.

My father couldn't go back to Poland for the same reasons married. I thought he was just slightly paranoid when he said he'd be arrested if he tried but I now know our family was watched when I was little. Poor blokes who had to watch my sibs and me picking our noses or having a punch up. Perhaps they just stuck to snooping on my dad. He did go back to live in Poland finally, in 2000, after my mother died. I think he felt at home but not quite completely, in the same way that England had never really been his home.

When we were visiting him in 2007 I took DDs1, 2 and 3 and DS1 to Auschwitz. I gave them the option (an option I didn't extend to the younger ones). They all opted to come, as did my father. They were in Y12, 10, 9 and 8 at the time.

despite my best effort at mangling the words

topic
covered

gah.

I thought it was principally a queston of when it should be covered Edgar.

i think any age is too young to be exposed to the full reality of the Holocaust - why film should used with caution.

I find myself if anything more sensitive than i was when, as a child i read 'The Silver Sword', or watched related films.

germany only offered councelling to war victims of any kind relatively recently, about 10 years ago.
much too late for many.

So these will principally only be second generation 'victims' Mousy, which isn't the same.

I think very few of those who suffered first hand would have sought or accepted counselling. It was a different era for a start, much less 'soft' and my guess would be that they themselves would have regarded it as a huge self-indulgence.

I'm not sure what I can add to this thread except to say that after reading every post, the same memory keeps popping into my head. There is a holocaust museum in Israel called Yad Vashem. There is a memorial for the one million children killed. You enter and it's dark except for one candle and a million mirrors. It really hammers it home. I've been several times (the first time I was only about 10) and I always spent the most time looking at all the reflections. One million Jewish children were murdered. The candles aren't enough. I will tell the stories to my children, sit with them as we watch the films and encourage them to read the books and learn more.

A boy brought up alongside my mother was a Belsen survivor - he'd be late-60's now. i think counselling might have also have been seen as a means of repeating the experience and making it linger. His mother used to find even the sound of a German voice unbearable.

actually it is hard to quantify and definitely state that counselling would be any good anyway - in some cases it can increase PTSD. (caveat: conflicting evidence on this - psychiatric outcomes very hard to quantify)

there was an interesting programme on Radio4 about counselling in Croatia becoming unaffordable to the government because there were so many claimants - so many affected people = too big a burden to be workable.

I'm a history teacher. There's a special schools' version of the film cut for age 12+, it would have been that version they were shown.

crashdoll my grandfather smuggled two small Jewish children out of Eastern Poland (Lwow) when the Germans moved in. He took them to the coast in Croatia. Their name was Kauffman, but they would have been travelling on false papers and I have no idea what name would have been on those (probably my grandfather's). Their parents had to stay behind or all four would almost certainly have died. We'd love to find that they got to the US or UK and survived. There are apparently no clues now in Lwow. It would be so good to have some suggestion as to how to track them down, if they're alive.

I think we should trust teachers' judgement. There's no way to make the topics of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution age appropriate: by its very nature it defies human decency. Year 9 seems the right time to teach it, particularly since history is no longer compulsory after this age (though some schools let students drop history at the end of year 8). If young people are troubled by what they learn I'd say that's normal and they'd benefit from talking it through with an adult. Hopefully history class won't be the first place they encounter examples of the worst of human nature; if it is, then education is doing its job but it might make it more of a shock. Our first response must not be to blame and accuse but to understand. Incidentally, there's advice on film ratings and schools on the BBFC website.

@EWebb you know this thread is over 7 years old..?

I watched a documentary in history in year 9 that showed emaciated corpses being thrown into pits during the Holocaust. It's history, not a horror film. The world is a bleak place and teen-agers need to understand context

I don’t think YABU.

A lot will depend on the child - some are much more easily deeply upset and worried by things than others.

Of course it’s ‘educational’ but I don’t think that justifies showing a 15 film to 13 year olds without parental permission.

There are plenty of other ways of teaching about the Holocaust, at least until they’re a bit older.

YABU, they would have only shown the bits suitable for that age group, which they are allowed to do. Its important they learn about ug properly IMO. You cant dress it up.

We watched it around then I think and i don't recall being scarred by it. Upset, definitely, but it didn't cause me lasting issues.

Just wanted to say - showing it to year nines is pretty standard for my area of the UK, there isn't a school l that doesn't

Actually I think it should be compulsory so yabu.

As said upthread, schools usually have a special schools edition too

This thread is over 7 years old.

I grew up in the 1950s, there used to be a programme called All Our Yesterdays and it would start with something like "20 years ago today" and tell that story. Much of it was WW11 stuff, maybe all of it. I can remember as a 6 7 or 8 year old watching the films of the camps, the beatings, one scene always stuck in my mind was a boy trying to get into the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw with food and the beating he got.

I thought SL was a good film but compared to the real films recorded at the time it isn't very horrific. Children find things upsetting, it is part of growing up. She will process it and it will probably stay with her. SL made me cry but it wasn't the horror that made me cry it was that a very flawed man saved so many and their families go on. It showed that anyone can be a hero.