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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want to hear about my Husbands trip to Auschwitz

27 replies

Aquababe · 28/03/2007 12:43

My dh took his school on a trip to Auschwitz and he got back yesterday. the stories he told me were so terribly sad. I already know a bit about Auschwitz and that saddens me. He kept telling me these stories and showing me photos of little children just a bit older than my dd. I just want to cry. He even managed to tell me some other stories and things that I hadn't known that seem to just make my heart hurt.

I know he needs to 'off load' some of this and I know that ignorance of suich events isn't good, but since having my daughter things like this affect me so much more.

Am I being unreasonable to not want him to tell & show me more when he come home from work. Also how do I say it with out coming over as callous.

OP posts:
Blu · 28/03/2007 12:47

If used properley knowledge is power. We can learn nothing by keeping our heads in the sand. I know that's not hwat you are saying, and I don't thinkk there is much point in dwelling in details fr the sake of it, either.

But your DH has been on an educational visit, and not only will he be wanting to share it with you - he has had a powerful experience and does not wnat to experience it isolated from you, presumably - and he seems to have found different levels o0f facts and hisoty that have widened his experience or understanding.

Feel sad....listen, you will recover form the sadness....but you will maybe gain something more long-standing.

Original poster
Aquababe · 28/03/2007 12:59

It's just so harrowing I'm crying just thinking about it and couldn't sleep with it all going round my head.
He promised to bring home a book with images & photos from the death camps in it. I'm dreading seeing all their pretty little terrified faces.

OP posts:
motherinferior · 28/03/2007 13:00

Yes, I think you are.

Of course Auschwitz makes you want to cry. That is the point. I don't think we can determinedly avoid knowing the horrors that human beings can inflict on each other on that basis.

2shoesonanegghunt · 28/03/2007 13:00

yes you are

morningpaper · 28/03/2007 13:01

Aquababe the fact that you react that way is GOOD

That's the way you SHOULD react

You need to know - we all need to know. You need to know so you can tell your children and so they can tell their children and so it never happens again.

Molesworth · 28/03/2007 13:02

You don't have to look at pictures if you don't want to AB. I find that slightly prurient tbh.

The book to read is Primo Levi's "If This is a Man". Everyone should read it.

lulumama · 28/03/2007 13:03

you must let him talk about it

the survivors of the holocuast are virtually all gone, and people still need to accept that the horror of what happened does not die with them...

amazing DH took his pupils there, to see the place where this happened, in living memory

as MI says, of course it makes you want to cry...

you must let DH talk about it, making him hold it in, to preserve you is unreasonable

we all need to look at what happened

milge · 28/03/2007 13:07

Yes you are being unreasonable.

willow2 · 28/03/2007 13:08

Yes.

motherinferior · 28/03/2007 13:09

I suggest that after you've listened to him, the two of you make a donation to an organisation like Amnesty, or to the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture.

Horrors persist in our world. But at the same time they don't persist unchallenged.

KathyMCMLXXII · 28/03/2007 13:13

You're not being unreasonable. You know what happened at Auschwitz and you are being entirely sensible in not wanting to be the outlet for your husband's distress over it.

I watched a lot of programmes about the Holocaust when I was pregnant (must have been a special Holocaust season or something) and I can't shake the awful images from my mind. I have too much imagination and once my mind wanders back to it I can't stop thinking about how appalling it must have been for people with children. Hellish for everyone, of course, but so awful to think about that happening to parents and children that contemplating it is too much to bear.

We need to remember what happened and we need to make sure it doesn't happen again. That does not mean we need to go over and over it again.

Issymum · 28/03/2007 13:20

Dissenting voice here.

I think you need to listen to your husband's account so far as is necessary for you to assist your husband to reconcile himself with that experience. Beyond that, no.

Personally, I really do think that, through my general education and reading, I understand the nature of the Holocaust and I'm not sure that looking at more pictures or hearing further accounts would make much real difference to that understanding, but would merely make me sad.

If I wanted to devote more time and emotion to the issue, I think it would be better spent looking at why the Holocaust happened and using that information to react to modern day events. I guess I might also ask myself how I, perhaps as a standard 1940s German hausfrau with children, might have reacted to the situation. A very difficult question.

Caligula · 28/03/2007 13:25

No you're not being unreasonable in not wanting to hear about it (it's bloody tough to hear about), but you would be unreasonable if you refused to listen to him and allow him to share his feelings with you. He's had a massively powerful response to a very sad experience and he wants to share it with you, his wife. I don't think off-loading is an appropriate concept here, partnership involves comforting and sustaining each other, it's part of the deal. He thinks highly enough of you to want to share his feelings with you, I'd be glad of that tbh.

warthog · 28/03/2007 13:56

i think you should let him share it - i'm sure it was very traumatic. knowing the facts is one thing, but going and experiencing the atmosphere and tension of the place is totally different. it brings it home to you just how stupendously vile it was. and these sorts of things are still ongoing. i'm not saying we have to rake things up over and over again, just acknowledge their existence, out of respect for the dead.

half my family was killed in the concentration camps. i have no cousins, aunts or uncles on my father's side. they deserve a voice, even if it's just for five minutes.

tribpot · 28/03/2007 14:04

Auschwitz is an amazing place to visit - and obviously I don't mean in a good way - and I really would defy anyone to be able to keep their feelings and impressions to themselves so soon after having been there.

I can't tell you what it is like to stand in that place, and know what happened. I've known people elsewhere in Germany and Poland actually get chills when they just stopped by a road, and didn't realise til later that it was the site of a death camp - it feels like the earth itself is tainted, even though the logical part of my brain knows that can't be so.

You should share your feelings with your dh and I completely understand how you must feel as a mother - I can't bear to think about what it must have been like for parents and children. Not so that he won't tell but so he will be able to understand and respect the strength of your reaction. You should cry, btw. We all should.

IdrisTheDragon · 28/03/2007 14:07

My DH went on a trip with work to Auschwitz and although I know he hasn't told me everything about the trip, I am glad he told me what he has.

Original poster
Aquababe · 28/03/2007 16:48

One of the problems is I don't think it has quite sunk in with him yet. He's talking about the facts and figures and one of the only personlised comments he made was about how one of them looked like our dd. That's why I think it'll be really painful alround tonight as it begins to sink in as he'll of been discussing it a large part of the day with those who went.

One of the things I was surprised (and sadden) about was when I was saying that I couldn't understand how the guards could do that my husband told me they'd been recruited from the local prisons (murderers and rapist etc)

Kathy I also have an overactive imagination which makes it all so real to me.

MI will definitely look into making donations as it was making me think about how little some people have learnt from this event

OP posts:
tribpot · 28/03/2007 20:54

We'll never know how the guards could have done it, that's a given. Or anyone who was there. Yet people did. I honestly think it is a shame you weren't there too - it is a lifechanging experience.

tribpot · 28/03/2007 21:00

Btw, the photos you imagine are not like you imagine. Mostly they're just photos of people being normal, and the enormity is, you can't not look at every single photo. Because they all died. Talking about facts and figures is quite normal - it is colossal, seriously.

tribpot · 28/03/2007 21:37

Btw (again) - it can't sink in in a single day. You are standing there looking at a place where literally millions of people died. He can't be over this.

ImaWurzelcoveredinchocolate · 28/03/2007 21:42

My DH went there a while back. Said it had a real sad atmosphere.
I want to visit.

NOT IN A MORBID DISTASTEFUL WAY THOUGH!!

I never paid any attention in my history classes so a bit dim in that department.

I will crawl back under my rock before i get yelled at for being insensitive

LowFatMilkshake · 28/03/2007 21:45

Aqua - I understand what you mean about how things affect you more once you have children.

I doubt if once you have visited such a place you will ever get over it.

I can still remember my mum telling me what my grandad told her about what happened to Japanese POW's. And that was about 15 years ago she told me. The imagery is awful and it was just speech.

Just after I had DD the Beslan School tradgey occured and I literally spent the whole day at work sobbing.

I have no answer save that perhaps you and DH need to talk about what he needs to get out in the open and and what you are prepared to hear.

{{hugs}}

LowFatMilkshake · 28/03/2007 21:49

Sorry my post looked a little callous - I think my comments were in the wrong order.

Anything to do with Auschwitz has me deep in thought for hours after and always on the verge of crying if not actually crying - and I have never been and do not think I could cope if I did.

Drylogsonly · 17/02/2025 20:59

It’s such a personal thing. It’s not somewhere I would ever go as a tourist, but I know it’s important that exists for visitors.
Musk is throwing Nazi/ fascists salutes for Christian sake while being pals with hebUS president.
but no, I wouldn’t want to hear about anyone visit.

Anotherparkingthread · 17/02/2025 21:08

You absolutely don't need to be presented with distressing images just because it's factual history.

Bad things happen, it doesn't mean people should all have the graphic details rammed down their necks.

You're clearly a nice person and well aware of these things so it isn't educational to show you or even particularly helpful, it's not like you or anybody else can change history.

Tell him, gently, that you're not in the right place to cope with such distressing retellings and that it's very painful for you. Explain to him that you aren't trying to minimise what has happened but it is unhelpful for you to lose sleep for things that are very far removed from you.

The world is a dark enough place at the moment, you aren't winning any prizes or doing a greater good by constantly reminding yourself of extreme anguish that happened decades ago.