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?

That reminds of Eisenhower wanting everything photographed as the camps were being liberated saying " Document this because in time people will try and say this never happened"

I went to Dachau with my DS (10) this summer. There was no tour guide, but an audio tour, and lots of posters/exhibits to be read as you pass through the buildings. We skipped some of the content that I felt was too graphic, but DS came away with an entirely different understanding of WW2 (which his great-granddad fought in), how the Holocaust came to be and the scale of the loss.

I remember in 2008 when in Munich two American women who randomly met each other on the Neuschwanstein Castle tour chatting together about how "great" the tour to Auschwitz was and other camps closer to Germany as if you were talking about a seaside resort or your favourite gig etc. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It really is sickening. Just talked about like a tourist attraction.

Don’t want to derail but for anyone wanting a fully researched account of a (fictional) survivor of auschwitz then I recommend the storyteller book by Jodi Picoult.
I was on holiday when I read it and refused to interact with anyone till I’d spent 8 hours uninterrupted reading it.

It was a very accurate account and I struggled at times and was tempted to put the book in the freezer.

Exactly - I really don't understand replies on here as if it's some kind of theme park. It's part of making sure the world never forgets the atrocities committed there (especially given that there are Holocaust deniers and the camp remains open as evidence). It's no more disrespectful than visiting soldiers' graves from WWI

I don't think that this is appropriate at all. I visited as an adult and found it harrowing, it really is something that never leaves you and any child wouldn’t fully comprehend it anyway

Primo Levi's, "If this is a man" is an account from an actual survivor and well worth a read.

I do enjoy Jodi Picoult's work and I know she does a lot of research, but Levi's voice is authentic.

Thanks. I fully understand why some people don't wish to go. It is a personal choice but to judge anyone who does as voyeurs and ghouls is deeply offensive.

I am so sorry for what your family went through.

I went with my husband a few years ago - there were a group of three clearly bored teens sitting outside one of the dorm blocks doing roly polys on the bars of the staircases into them and sitting around playing with their DS’s/phone’s. I’ve never seen anything quite so disrespectful in my life.

I agree. There are many many survivor accounts. And despite fictional ones being one of my most read genres, the real ones are so much more poignant.

Eva's Story by Eva Schloss is a very good account. Her mum married Otto Frank after the war.

I'd also recommend "Night" Elie Wiesel.

I have visited Auschwitz five times. Every time there was something inappropriate or off in different ways from different visitors. But what the hell. If that place doesn't teach us to try to have some more tolerance and understanding for our fellow human beings, nothing will.

Why on earth would you visit there 5 times? Sorry but that’s really really strange.

Five times? Really 😬

When we went to Krakow our youngest was about 8 - the reason we didn't go to Auschwitz was because we felt he was too young - had we just had the elder ones (15 and over) we would have gone

We did see the Ghetto memorial and some other things so he got some idea but they don't recommend it for under 14s (at 14 he did go to museum in Tirana where they recommend certain rooms to be careful for under 16s but said 13 and up is up to the parents)

Young children are definitely allowed into auschwitz.

When I was there, there were lots of young children visiting.

It probably would be best to make it over 14s.

I don't think it's that strange.

I've been to auschwitz three times.

Auschwitz is not just an ex concentration camp. It is now a museum. It has a cafe and a shop.

This means that a lot of people work in Auschwitz.

My cousin works in the Auschwitz museum.

Two of the times that I went to Auschwitz, I went there to meet my cousin when she was finishing work. We met in auschwitz as I was picking her up from work.

Those who are against people visiting are invariably those who downplay the horror of the Holocaust, in my experience. Once you have stood on the platform where the selection occurred, seen the gas chambers, seen the rings for tying up horses on the walls of the dormitories (which were made from old German stables taken down and rebuilt in Poland), or that devastating room with the walls of baby clothes taken from Jewish infants at the time of their murders-- it's pretty hard to deny what happened, or stay silent in the face of the growing proportion of the population who say "it is exaggerated" or "why do we give such time in the syllabus to this and not to Islamic history" or "the Jews behave just like Nazis now."

Could be a teacher who takes groups of children? Someone with family who died there and goes as some of us would visit a family grave? Probably other reasons I can't think of.

You're perhaps deliberately conflating a few things here.
Reports of the Holocaust were in no way exaggerated.
There is no reason why both Islamic history and the history of the Holocaust shouldn't be on school curricula.
The Israeli state is currently committing genocide.

What on earth possessed you to write that last sentence?

As a response to the last line of the post I responded to. The poster seems to be using
the Holocaust as a valid reason not to criticise the current actions of the Israeli state.
This may be seen as off topic, but I felt that I had to respond.
Again, the Holocaust is nearly beyond comprehension as an act of collective human evil. But the lessons we need to learn from it are that we need to constantly be vigilant towards the kind of thinking that could lead one people to "other", persecute and ultimately massacre another. And that NOBODY is immune from this kind of thinking.

Exactly. Teachers go to auschwitz a lot.

Also some people go every year to remember relatives.