AIBU to think yr5 is young to learn about the Holocaust

[Nolaughingmatter]

Dd is learning about the war at school. She’s been really interested in the topic and I thought it would be more about life for children, battles, bombing, DD day etc.
They’ve now started to teach about the Holocaust. Dd personally isn’t upset about learning this, she more found it incredulous that people would commit such attrocities..
As an only child and with me not going out to work, we have time to talk and I am able to explain things to her in a way it won’t phase her. However, not all kids are like her, some may be going home upset and possibly not even talk to their parents.
Dd told me they viewed a film about the camps with dead bodies today and touched on the gas chambers. Again it didn’t upset her. I imagine the film was footage taken at the end of the war when the allied forces arrived.
Just wanted to ask mumsnet about school teaching this so young.
I’ve used a different username as this post is very identifying.

I go out to work, so I haven't spoken to the kids in years. Can't even remember if they go to school TBH. Guess they'll just have to cope.

The HungryDonkey - It was the culmination of all the evil fascist aristocratic crap that had been going on for centuries. Look at Ireland for an example closer to home. Millions died there too. That's why we have NO TIME for the creeps who say it didn't happen. Even if there were bigger geopolitical/financial machinations going on so what? People didn't have to and shouldn't have gone along with it.

I'm quite old, as child on Sunday evenings the family watched 'world at war' and I wasn't upset. As an adult I am. As an adult I think, "how could you have two small children watching this?".

I think most children cannot actually relate to it as they don't have a world view or the nuanced emotions.

At about age 10 I read, 'when Hitler stole pink rabbit' and 'the silver sword'. If it is explained appropriately it's fine.

I'm a trained history teacher (secondary) we had specific training on how to teach the holocaust. We avoid showing dead bodies even to Year 9 (lots of evidence about how that can be counter productive and effectively desensitise children. You can teach it in a very impactful way without showing bodies (e.g. showing piles of shoes etc). I think learning about it in Year 5 is okay I would just be worried about how it is taught if by a non specialist (as they presumably are in primary)

I didn’t watch that. I’m mid 40’s.

My gf was also at Belsen.

Small world. By DGF didn't get into the nitty gritty details, but he said it was horrible. His commander made them all go walk around and told them to never ever forget what they saw. He knew that my DGF had a camera (which he had smuggled into the war from Canada) and he told him to take pictures of it to bring back. However the pictures (and just those pictures none of the hundreds of others he'd taken over the 5 years) disappeared from his bunk on the boat on the way back to Canada.

boatrace
Interesting about the specialist training and desensitisation. Schindler’s list has just popped up again on sky and obviously some scenes are very shocking even for me as an adult so I wouldn’t show them to dd. I did show her the beginning scene with the family praying and then the empty room and explained the symbolism. And also the train scene and the prisoners emptying cases. I think that’s enough context for her.

Crazy
It is a small world. I don’t think my gf was part of the liberating army. He was clean up . That is strange about the photos, did he ever have any idea why?

Another Jew here, and I’d be happy (well, not “happy” exactly, but in agreement) with the Holocaust being taught to this age group. And being upset (but not traumatised, of course) strikes me as a healthy reaction. My parents who left me to watch Schindler’s List unsupervised at age 10, however...

did he ever have any idea why?

He had his conspiracy theories . Spies on the ship, people who didn't want the public to know the full scope of what had happened, especially considering Canada was refusing to take Holocaust refugees at the time....

I hope that when schools teach about Anne Frank, they also teach that her visa application was rejected by the US in 1941.

Dc's yr 5 haven't learnt about it at school (yet?). Some of the children in the class are very young (and they wouldn't be reading the Hunger Games or anything near that either!)

Mine know a lot about the world wars but not about the holocaust. I find it too distressing, I don't think that would be helpful for them.

It depends how it’s taught. I was shown a video (think it was World At War) with graphic images of mountains of bodies being bulldozered into pits when I was in Year 7 (age 11) and it made me scared to sleep for literally months after. It is important to teach, but think there are age appropriate ways of doing it. That documentary would have been screened on TV well past my bedtime.

And very small world...my GF was also part of the Army unit clearing up Belsen. He also never speaks of it. I only know because my Gran told me.

I think it is very important to teach them and in a way they understand.

The bit about the dead bodies i question. Not because it would distress mine but because when we went to the London Imperial War Museum they wouldn't let dc who I think was slightly older than year 5 in to the exhibition because of graphic images which were the starving and bodies.

That said it depends what the images shown at school were.

I watched The Zookeeper's Wife this week which is principally about the Warsaw ghetto and contains a lot of death and brutality including the gang rape of a 12yo ... but it's rated 12 because it happens just off screen. Y5 is a bit young for it but I'd recommend to those with secondary-age children.

I think there's a difference between reading information or fiction about serious topics, and seeing films about them. A child who can't imagine the horrors won't fill in the gaps, but a film can't help but show everything IYSWIM.

I don't really understand why you think it's desirable for you to teach your own child about the war and the Holocaust, but you're not sure it's appropriate for a teacher to do the same with a class.

Wow EssentialHummus 10 watching the whole film alone!

I didn’t know there was denial of the holocaust after the war by any allied nations. Neither do I remember learning about Anne being denied a US visa and I’ve been to the AF museum.

AsMuchUse
Not all children know how to vocalise their upset unfortunately. You were still young to see this. Very small world!

And no, dd isn’t watching or reading The Hunger Games right now either! She prefers children’s programmes like I am Frankie 🙄. I otoh would rather not be subjected to it.....

Hosta
I thought it was quite young with reference to a past thread and was asking for opinions. I didn’t know if School would explain about the camps and I took a parental decision about what my child can and can’t handle. I’m also surprised at the way they’ve done it - ie the film. Dh is French and he said they learnt history chronologically, ancient to modern so French children wouldn’t have learnt about the Holocaust until way into secondary. Did you read the comment upthread from boatrace?

As long as the graphic content is age appropriate I don't think it's unreasonable. I think all generations should know what happened. My ex grandmother in law who was polish saw all her family killed bar her and her sister by the Nazis in a camp. She managed to escape to India. The stories she told me were heartbreaking. But they needed to be heard.

My DH is a History teacher and specialist training certainly isn't compulsory for teaching the Holocaust, though plenty is available. He's taught it for many years, but in secondary. I would just assume that any teacher who is teaching it at Primary level is doing so with some thought, either by them, or by the school i.e. it's either something they feel they want to do appropriately or the school has decided it should be on the curriculum at that point and would have offered support to those who were teaching it if they didn't feel confident. In my experience, a lot of History teaching is done with a film . Even my son who is in year 1 tells me about the films they watched about History! In seriousness, I think they are often good starting points for discussion/teaching and I would hope that they would be properly introduced and followed up.

But to answer the question: I don't think it is too young, no, as long as it is done appropriately. I actually think that young children can be less emotionally reactive to distressing topics as long as they are not too graphic, but I agree also with the poster who said that there's no harm in being upset within reason and we want children to understand how awful it was. I would expect them to revisit it at secondary level though - I don't think that the level of information and reflection which is possible at year 5 level should be the only level of reflection which a child ever reaches.

Given children younger than Year 5 experienced the Holocaust, and were killed in the gas chambers, why is Year 5 too young to learn about it? The children involved weren't exempt because they were too young.

Yes, we want to protect our kids, but this happened within living memory, and needs to be taught. 'Lest we forget' means exactly that...it will happen again if we don't teach our kids about it and hammer the message home.

I didn’t know there was denial of the holocaust after the war by any allied nations

Not so much denial as downplaying. There were millions of displaced Jewish refugees trying to get out of Europe after the war ended (hence the creation of Israel). Canada's official response when asked how many they would take was "one would be too many." Not something we're proud of.

If the full extent of the brutality they experienced had been understood by the public at the time, I can imagine they would have pushed for a different response.

FYI, my ex finances DGM worked for the PM's office after the war in an office overseeing interviews with Japanese POW's, and (this is what she told me) is that the order came from on high that none of the information was to be released to the public because if the average Brit found out what exactly had happened in those camps they would want to re-start the war with Japan and the UK was in no position to carry on the war.

*fiancée not finance. Lord knows he never financed a thing.