Or is Anne Frank’s diary & other WW2 stuff inappropriate for primary school children

[Lellikelly26]

My DD is in year 3 (8 yr olds) and is studying WW2. I don’t know the extent of what they cover at school but my mum brought round some WW2 diaries including a lady who was in Jersey during it’s German occupation and other accounts of women who helped in the war effort and felt responsible for deaths, with one killing herself. I do not think this is appropriate reading for an 8 year old.
My DM used to read me Anne Frank’s diary as bedtime reading when I was a kid and I have refused to engage in anything to do with the wars since I was so disturbed. I avoided history at school and can’t watch films about it etc.
AIBU or are some accounts of the wars not appropriate for primary age children.

It depends on the age and most schools make it age appropriate. Schools will not be likely to give 8 year olds anything too horrific.

I think reading appropriate excerpts is fine, about what life was like hiding in the attic.

To be honest, I grew up knowing worse as my granddad was part of the liberating forces that went into Bergen Belsen just a week after Anne Frank died. What he saw stayed with him for the rest of his life. He spoke rarely about it and not in great detail, but when he did he looked haunted. That was enough for me. As others have said, this was first hand knowledge that many 8 year olds have lived with.

They do it in Y3/4 where I work. The kids get taken on a trip to Eden Camp museum and they love it. Lots of learning about air raids, evacuation, rationing and shelters. They are told about Anne Frank but they don't read the diary.
I did GCSE history (I'm mid 30s) and have never read Anne Frank's diary.

I don’t think it’s appropriate but only because of the style of writing and content regarding an adolescents awareness of sexuality etc. I think the stuff regarding the holocaust is fine. It happened, it is what it is, I don’t think it’s bad for kids to know this and I wouldn’t have an issue with the detail relevant to the holocaust for that age group.

It's taught in year six at my dc's school. I do think that year three is too young to be given details about the holocaust. I have a sensitive 8 year old and she would be very upset and lose a lot of sleep.

Children in Russia study Solzenitsyn's GULAG Archipelago as compulsory reading, which is arguably a far more difficult read than Anne Frank's Diary.

I teach WWII to my Year 3 Class. We don't cover the Holocaust at all. Our focus is 'How The War Started' and 'The Homefront'. Within these areas we cover the geography involved, the Allied Countries and the Axis Powers, Digging For Victory, Rationing, Evacuees, Wartime Entertainment and 'The Little Ships' (the rescue at Dunkirk...not the battle as such, but the rescue mission). It's a fantastic topic and it's picked up again in Y6 when they DO talk about the Holocaust (and other things we haven't covered in Y3!)

However, saying this, some of my children did their own research, as they like to do when they are enjoying a topic, and brought it up themselves. They are very astute, 8 year olds, and I think many people don't give them enough credit. I answered questions honestly, but not graphically, giving facts not hyperbole. They understand facts.

I wouldn't, as a teacher, teach this to Year 3, as there are still a few children (only a few though) who would find it scary. We ALL find it upsetting...it would be strange if we didn't.

Primary 5 (scotland) we started learning about ww2 and used the World At war series narrated by Lawarence Olivier - queue the music in your head if you have seen it.

We read the diaries of Ann Frank too and did a project of liberation of France in primary 6-7.

First year high school history we learned about the Holocaust by watching the Nuremberg trials (I had already seen the original ones due to being a history nut).

Some aspects of the War is maybe too young at that age but start at home with that and use online tools and websites for easier education.

By sixth year in 2000 for me I was helping lead a project into the trials, holocaust and the fallout which is used in schools today.

Your going to come across upsetting images and violent videos no matter what, all you can do is prepare yourself and kids for things that have happened 70 years ago (and more recently).

My granpa was a coxwain in ww2 at normandy, my hubby granpa was a liberator - that's all we know but have requested more info as a way to honour him.

Common sense approach for this topic but warning - DONT watch Escape from Sorbibor after dinner.

My soon did ww11 in year 4 the read some of Anne franks diary and the boy in the stripped pyjamas. He found it very interesting and enjoyed finding out more independently at home. In school they did a lot about rationing, the evacuees and looked at news reports of the time. I think the topic can be age appropriate but if you are worried why not ask the teacher? I would have thought they would only be doing parts of it and not all.

In my year 2 class we do 'why we remember' which is based around wwII, the great fire of London and good old Florence Nightingale and the Crimean wars. I call it how to die in different ways!

When I was in Primary School we did wwII and evacuees. Also read I am David which is dark but so interesting.

My DC all did WWII in year 2!
In fact after the first two had done it as a topic I was horrified that they had no idea: who Britain was fighting, who Hitler was, and really anything beyond "dig for victory", "make do and mend", evacuation and the very few bombs that dropped on the town we live in (mainly stray ones dropped because they didn't want to fly home with them).

I did object when my DD's class teacher started to read "The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas" to them - although other parents had no issues, I knew my daughter couldn't take it. I also didn't encourage her at a similar age to read "Goodnight Mr Tom" when her Aunt gave it to her.

But actually the younger they are, most children seem to cope with a lot of the gory bits of history as they don't really empathise. My friends and I loved to talk about Hang Drawing and Quartering etc. Now I have to try not to think too much about those kind of punishments as they really turn my stomach.

We are lucky to live in an age in a country where our children don't have to find out about the horrors of war firsthand. Y2/3 and up is not too young, IMO, to start learning about these things in an attempt to prevent them from happening again. Lest we forget...

Just saw the last post in my threads and on thay point I remember reading something about refugee children in schools and how there was a ? around treating these sort of topics with care.

My best friend at school was from a country that was at war and ethnic cleansing was being practiced against her ethnic group in that area.

The world stood back and watched and did nothing.

I do think probably there needs to be some sensitivy around the topic where the classes have children / or the children have relatives or close connections to countries that are at war and atrocities are actively being carried out.

i mean look at Syria, international community doesn't seem to be able to do anything about this stuff. The rwandan genocide. Srebrenica.

I don't see that we have had any success in stopping these things happening again.

Maybe if the focus was broader rather than WW2 with more recent atrocities being covered and asked to think about why this keeps happening would be good? There is loads of stuff I never learnt as school - what about what Leopold of Belgium did in the Congo in the late 19th century for example. I never learnt about that, when I first read it I was utterly shocked, and why isn't this more well known? People keep doing this to people over and over and over and we do not learn.

And we should be remembering ALL of the people affected by these atrocities.

I understand but don't really agree with the focus on WW2 in this. I suppose it's because we were so directly involved. But still.

I bought the abridged version for my DD recently, it edits out the parts relating to sexuality etc. Children absolutely need to know that these atrocities went on it our world and is very recent history.

Most schools are sensitive if they have children especially affected by topics. I taught secondary Science and it was certainly one of the things I was taught to consider when planning a lesson. Not so crucial for a topic like 'friction" or "metallic bonding" but pretty crucial for "cancer" or "diabetes".

The whole of my mum's family lived in Jersey during the occupation, I have heard stories about it the whole of my life. I read loads of books on the topic which were in my Great Grandmothers house.

I read the diary of Anne Frank around about the age of 9 ish I think. Found it fascinating.

Loved reading books about WWII - Goodnight Mr Tom, Back Home, Carries War, etc. All about the same age. There is an element that some of the topics covered in the books would be missed by a younger reader I know when I had re read them as an adult I have picked up more and more of the subtleties.

noodle have you been here then? And to the war tunnels? (Previously the underground hospital?)

History, even the bad bits, should never be shielded from children -- but there are age-appropriate ways of talking about it.

Imagine the poor primary school kids who had to grow up in affected areas of Britain or Europe during the war? No chance for them to opt out because they were too young.

@ememem84 yep every year at least once a year if not more from 0-24, and then again recently a few years ago. I still have some family out there.

Sold our family home in 2001. Regularly visited the underground hospital, sadly didn't manage to go when we came more recently.

The holocaust is generally a Year 6 subject.

When I was a child my grandparents lived in Guernsey and we spent every school holiday there. I'm in my mid 40's and my grandfathers both fought in WW2. I also remember a great uncle of mine who we visited sometimes had fought in the First World War - he told us about the trenches and how he'd had to command his men to go over the top.

My parents were both born at the end of thr Second World War, so still remembered the time after - rationing and so on. Everyone seemed to know people who'd fought in the war, lost people in the war and so on. It was part of everyday conversation. And going to Guernsey so often, we could hardly ignore the effects of the war on the landscape and the people.

I can't remember a time when I didn't know about the war - including the horrors of the holocaust.

I think that's the difference now - for children today it is a lifetime away, but they are aware of new wars, existing wars and new horrors.

As the far right gains more acceptance across the world, maybe we should be more willing to tell children the stories of the Nazis and the Second World War again?

Personally I think YABU. It's history. It's fact. Anne Frank wasn't much older than your DD and what happened wasn't fiction it was real. It disturbed me as a child, mainly because the age difference between Anne and myself at the time was only a few years but to be honest that's why I think learning about it young at school is completely appropriate as the awful truth has more of an impact. What happened in both WWs (and other wars around the world) should not be sanitised. It's a lesson to every generation.

To be honest there's stuff in Anne Frank's diaries about masturbation and stuff which is more mature than the war stuff