Children at Auchwitz

[JuvenileBigfoot]

I went to Auchwitz yesterday. There was a family on our tour with 2 young children. 6ish and 3ish. I was pretty surprised to see them to be honest. Even taking away where we actually were, it was a 2 hour coach ride each way and 4 hours of walking around. The little one had reached her limit before we even got through security and had a meltdown. And then walked around with her mum's phone during the tour. She also fell over a few times on the uneven ground. Her dad was then getting annoyed that she was crying and whinging.

And then.... well, we all know what happened there. The 6 year old did seem very interested but I think there's a bit more of a child friendly way to teach about the holocaust without being there, surrounded by horror. It was a lot even for the adults. Several people cried, some had to walk out of some of the exhibits. It just felt like it was a bit much. And who knows how much the little one took in. The parents started off with the ear phones on her, listening to the guide who did NOT hold back on the details (and nor should he)

Lastly, on a selfish level, it was very distracting having a whiny 3 year old there.

Overall it just didn't seem appropriate.

AIBU?

I imagine for exactly that reason — that people find it comforting to have clearly identifiable bad guys, clearly marked out by swastikas, doing bad things to the good guys behind bars, rather than the grotesquely messy history of the ME.

Of course there’s a relationship between the Holocaust and Israel’s actions.

We went to the Holocaust exhibition at the Imperial War museum which was pretty traumatic and was advised for over 14s only. My kids are 14, 16 and 18 and we all found it very moving and shocking. I kept reminding my 14 year old he didn't have to stay if he found it too much. I was shocked there were people in there with kids in buggies. I assume they thought the kids wouldn't take any of it in but I certainly wouldn't have taken small children there, let alone to the actual camps.

I am French and went through the French education system.
France's school curricula provided and still provides for studying the Holocaust on three occasions: in the last year of primary school, in the last year of middle school, and in the penultimate year of secondary school.
On top of this, my family was directly impacted by the German occupation: my parents grew up under it, my great uncle was sent to a forced labour camp in Germany and my great aunt was sent to Auschwitz. I grew up hearing stories about the war but nothing prepared me for when I visited Sachsenhausen, 10 years ago.
I strongly believe that teenagers should be allowed to visit if they want to.
Books, films and oral history are not able to convey what happened in these camps. You need to see it.
I would like to add, my great aunt was a resistant. It is important to remember every person who was murdered in any of these camps: Jews, Russians, Poles, Roma, people with disabilities and many more.
https://khc.qcc.cuny.edu/camps/charts/

You're completely wrong and in my opinion, not wanting to go physically to such places shows more respect than strolling around gawping at the exhibits and unimaginably terrible evidence of so much suffering and horror by the real people who were forced to inhabit and bear the cruelty inflicted upon them...By all means preserve the site as a memorial but why it's necessary for people to walk around weeping and wailing, some taking selfies (😱) I just don't get it...I do feel the pain and suffering, I don't need to be on the spot to know what happened...it's ghoulish and voyeuristic and frankly in very poor taste...😥

I haven't been to Auschwitz but been to Dachau.
I knew a lot about the Holocaust but being there is totally different. It isn't some ghoulish place but rather "organized".
Which really showed how horrifically organized the holocaust was. The Nazis treated killing Jews and other unwanted like a bloody bureucratic exercise.
The camps have been preserved by the survivors as a reminder of what happened but also as a warning signal what might. And considering antisemitism is on the rise that is bloody needed.
My view on atrocities past and present is that I can't change them but that I have to at least look at them from the comfort of my cozy home. That is the minimum responsibility I personally set for myself.

My great aunt survived Auschwitz and would urge anyone and every one she met to go and visit it,. She wanted them to see it for themselves,
To describe people who visit as ghoulish, voyeuristic and in very poor taste is offensive to the people who lost loved ones there and who have made the journey to pay their respect.
By all means, don't go but let others do what they feel they have to do. I do not include selfies, in this.

totally agree that children shouldn’t be there though age is no sign of respect.
I went this year and was in a group with a woman and her two awful 20 ish daughters.
when we got back on the coach after Auschwitz and everyone was quiet and contemplative they were sitting pissing themselves laughing. They then spent the walk around birkenbau laughing at their mum who was struggling to keep up. I was so tempted to say something but I had a two hour coach journey back with them…..
I also didn’t see anyone doing selfies as it was strictly forbidden.

*Cariadm *

if it’s so awful and ghoulish and voyeuristic why were most of the guides when it opens former prisoners?
They thought it was important and their opinion is a lot more important than yours.

Auschwitz is good at explaining the many types of people who were put into concentration camps as is the Berlin Holocaust museum.

The Imperial War Museum warns visitors (at the museum and on their website) that their Holocaust Galleries aren't suitable for children under 14. I would say that Auschwitz itself would be even less suitable for children under 14.

I can understand your frustration at a whiny child there. When I first went to the Holocaust galleries at the IWM, soon after they first opened about 20 years ago, the visitors were mostly silent by the time we got to the exhibits relating to the ghettos and the camps. It seemed the only appropriate and respectful response to the retelling of such horror.

But this year I was stupid enough to go on a weekday during term-time, where there were several school groups of teenagers visiting the galleries. They were poorly behaved, e.g. standing around chattering next to a film showing the liberation of Bergen Belsen by the British Army - scenes of dead and emaciated prisoners. It angered me that they were so disrespectful and oblivious to the significance of what was depicted in the galleries. I cannot see how it was an educational experience - they didn't seem to understand anything of any importance about the Holocaust.

It's MY personal opinion and how I feel about it, nothing more and it was never suggested that my opinion was more important than anyone else's!! 🙄
Obviously millions of people think it's absolutely fine and if they have the constitution and the morbid fascination to go there so be it, I just couldn't, I had to leave Anne Franks house in Amsterdam because I was massively overwhelmed with pathos and sadness.
It's to do with respect and sensitivity as far as I'm concerned and the mere fact that the OP reported what she has witnessed, as have other posters which must indicate that there will be many disrespectful and unworthy people passing through should be reason enough to keep the site tranquil and respectfully quiet, the 'museum' (that word itself in relation to the camp makes me cringe) does not even have to be nearby.
Enough is internationally known about what happened as we're constantly reminded of it! 😥

I agree with you Cariadm

It isn't morbid fascination though if it's about respecting and honouring the wishes of the survivors.
I don't think anybody should have to go, but calling it ghoulish and voyeuristic is just disrespectful.
Doesn't matter that it is a personal opinion, not everything has to be said out loud.

If you must have the last word at least make the effort to respond to some of the things I said instead of just repeating almost the same righteous rhetoric you trotted out before? 🙄

If you don't understand why calling visitors to Auschwitz ghoulish and voyeuristic I really can't help you.
Maybe tell it to some of the descendants of the survivors and see what they think.

You really don't get it do you?🙄The phrase 'visitors to Auschwitz' is in my mind so distasteful I don't know where to start even trying to explain the awfulness of it and the fact that so many don't seem to understand this makes me sad and disgusted in equal measures! 😥
As for your suggestion that we 'tell it to some of the descendants of the survivors and see what they think'? Perhaps what would be a better judge of how abominable and awful this commercial charade has now become would be if we could only ask those poor souls who actually suffered and perished in Auschwitz what they think of the coachloads of voyeurs and 'visitors' who pay to see and hear about the absolute nightmare they were forced into and most never came back from? 🤔😡

Personally I simply cannot understand why anyone would feel the need to be physically in a place that was the scene of such tremendous and horrifying suffering by so many people incarcerated there for no other reason than hatred and ignorance.😥
Even worse to imagine that it could ever be an appropriate place for children or adolescents beggars all belief as you have personally witnessed! 🙄
I am 76 and if I had been taken there on a school trip in my teens I can say with hand on heart that I know I would have been traumatised for life 😱and if my children, grandchildren or great grandchildren were offered this it would be a resounding no! 😡
I had to leave the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam because I was utterly overwhelmed with pathos and horror at the reality of what she and those families endured while in hiding, I felt their fear and I cannot even begin to imagine 'visiting' the site of a concentration camp, whilst in Germany once we passed by a signpost that said Dachau and my heart just turned over, I don't need to see it, I know what happened and most importantly so do the people it happened to, they should be honoured and respected by being left in peace...

"We, former concentration camp prisoners and eyewitnesses of the Shoah, have devoted all our lives to the mission of keeping the memory of the holocaust alive. Today, as our mission is coming to an end, we understand better than anyone else that our whole work and toil might be in vain if we do not succeed in bequeathing the material evidence of this terrible crime to future generations. The Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp remains the most important of these testimonies: once a place of suffering and death for hundreds of thousands of Jews, Poles, Roma, Sinti and people from all over europe, today it is a memorial site visited by millions of people from around the world"
Their words.

On YouTube there are several films of survivors returning.

One, which I can't find was a survivor and two young adults and she tells them about her life, about the jobs she was forced to do and if gives a real insight.

As I said upthread visits are more of a witnessing or a pilgrimage.

I understand your point of view. Although lots of people don't know much about it, or have a different imagination, so it is probably educational without being romanticised or fictionalised in the way that films and books are, so of value in that sense

I guess it would be interesting to know whether visiting actually changes anything. Does it make people more aware of other atrocities around the world, more understanding of Israel as a nation, less likely to vote for populist parties such as Reform? Do politicians who have visited change their outlook? Or is it a case of feel very sad about this but then box it off as separate and unrelated to present day issues.

I mean the oft repeated line that "this must never be allowed to happen again" seems to be taken very literally - gas chambers and camps in western Europe and murder of Jews in large numbers probably won't happen again but what about the genocide in Rwanda, the Balkans in the 90s, camps and torture of dissidents in Eastern Europe behind the iron curtain up to the mid 80s, russian labour camps, etc etc. Reality is it's not so easy to just decree this can't happen again by reacting to genocides, it needs a less self interested type of politics to prevent the situation arising in the first place, which hasn't so far happened.... largely because it's not a vote winner

Wow. Your post is highly offensive.
My aunt survived; she was the voice of those who didn't. She wanted people to see the place, yes to visit it. Was she wrong? Did she encourage voyeurs?
Your opinion is showing contempt and arrogance at the same time.

@Cariadm no one can speak for the people who died in these places. There is however a positive move within Jewish history to REMEMBER because so much of Jewish day to day history was removed forcibly. Former residents of Polish shtetls have listed from memory the names of people of these areas who were exterminated. Otherwise there is nothing. The work is ongoing. May their memory be a blessing.

I think it's one of those things that is really personal. My grandmother was a holocaust survivor who lost family in the camps. She was horrified at the thought of people visiting...why would you willingly walk into one was her way of thinking. Others in her position may have thought differently.

I hope to visit one day...it's really important to me that I do.

I've definitely read articles about survivors who didn't support the opening of the camps to visitors. There's no "right or wrong" really.

Personally, I hope to visit one day.

*Auvergne63 *

100%

The poster is vile and arrogant.
no one is forcing her to go but she is casting aspersions on the thousands who have visited these sites as well as the many former inmates who supported and acted as guides.
perhaps she should go to the Jews who created yad vashem and spew her bile to them.
An absolutely disgusting person.