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?

Entry is free. What people pay for is travel to get there and a tour guide. You pay very little for the guide.

@Swedishdeathcleaning Things have gone backwards. My school did teach it in the eighties. Although they were obviously not running school trips to Senegal or Gambia. France by ferry was the upper limit of what most parents could afford.

Places like Auschwitz exist today because survivors were determined to preserve them. They knew if they were built over, that people would deny what happened. I know that happened anyway, but there is physical proof.
Some of the survivors who preserved the concentration camps camped out there and gave free tours, long before it became the organised affair of today. So if survivors were willing to give up their free time to enable that to happen, I can not see how visiting today could possibly be disrespectful.

Indeed, I've been there in the early 90s and there were german families with thier children. It was amazing to me at the moment in time . However now I understand.

I visited in 2006 and there was a school class trip there. Very quiet and very respectful children, but to my mind, not old enough to deal with the trauma.
I do feel that children should know what happened, but I think they should be a lot older, maybe their last year of school. It's a very overwhelming place, even for adults. And I do think it's disrespectful for the place itself and for others visiting, when small children are kicking off because they've clearly been taken there, rather than wanting to go.

Having been to Auschwitz as an Adult and being absolutely horrified, I agree, it's no place to take children that young, regardless of length of time

I visited a friend in Munich, British, and we visited Dachau. She had already been there with some work friends one of whom was Jewish. He was so upset that he left exclaiming 'what have they done to my people'. When we went there my friend parked on the side of the street opposite the former camp and there were lots of trees and bird song. We went into the camp and it was silent. There was no birdsong and there were no birds. Apart from human voices, a few as it wasn't overly crowded, it was completely silent. If I remember correctly. a convent had been built in the grounds, I would like to say over the ovens, but not sure, but still no birds but felt more peaceful. We spent a fair amount of time in the camp, at least 2 hours, and when we went back to the car it was really nice to hear the birdsong again but heartbreaking to realise the pain and suffering that the brds picked up in the camp that they could not venture back in there. I realise this is one day out of many but it has imprinted itself on my memory.

No one should ever have to go through that amount of pain and suffering but, sadly, it is still happening around the worls.

I thought there was a lower age limit of 7 year olds for visiting.
YANBU I don’t think it’s right to take young children who are going to have meltdowns to a place like that. I think it’s something I wouldn’t take my son to until he was a teenager

Not a place for young children - 14 and upwards maybe. Having been there myself as part of a group I felt uneasy about being herded round as apart of a group. Individual visits are not possible and while the guide tried to give context (her English was rudimentary) I felt we were rushed through to make way for other groups to visit. For a young child it is inappropriate and tiring. The camp sadly for me trying to raise funds to maintain the decaying structure and improve the experience for visitors seems to have taken precedence over paying witness to the travesty and loss.

I was there on a tour and did not think the tours were disrespectful. I was surprised at the amount of young people that were there and did not see any disrespectful behaviour. I do agree though that the tours are sold along with the salt mines in a less than satisfactory way and I have seen people post on Krakow travels FB groups about can they do it quickly etc .

So your saying old enough to know what a smart phone is but too precious to know real history/genocide. Wow. Bonne chance in your...
.

I'm from a similar background to @89redballoons and had the war horror stories as a child, as well as the Communist era stories from those who had left/were exiled, and were obviously quite anti Communist.

I have had a lifelong fascination with WW2 and the Cold War and espionage, which I'm sure came from all that, but I can also definitely see the intergenerational trauma. Some of the stories I probably did hear when I was too young to really be exposed to that in such graphic detail. I didn't want my kids exposed to that in quite such an unfiltered way, while still wanting them to learn about their heritage and history and why it's important we remember the wars and Holocaust and talk about the victims and understand why it all happened.

I suppose my late Babci and her friends would be saying I've gone soft if they heard that. My family are not from a culture that believes in coddling children and young people, and that's partly a product of what the people have had to endure. Although there was undoubtedly hardship and trauma here in the UK in WW2, I don't think most people here can even imagine half of what went on in Eastern Europe. I agree with many of the principles I was brought up with, and I think modern kids are way overprotected. But there's a line, and no way does a three year old belong at a concentration camp museum. Far too young, and completely inappropriate. They won't be able to understand it, the images may be upsetting, or they'll be bored during an adult activity and disturb others.

I took my DS on the Auschwitz tour when he was 9 or 10. He's also been to the killing fields at a similar age. He wasn't too young, he wasn't traumatised, and he was taught important lessons about humanity which he understood better than year 6 history lessons.

I think some children are more mature than others, it really depends on the child, but I think 13/14 is about the right age generally. I visited about 15 years ago, I had read extensively and studied the holocaust and thought I knew what to expect but I was not at all prepared for the awful atmosphere when we arrived at Birkenau, it was like nothing I’ve ever felt before or since.
I could best describe it as malevolent, oppressive and despairing. It was very quiet but not at all calm, if that makes sense. I have never been so glad to leave a place.
I would not wish a child to experience those feelings without the understanding to put them in context.

'Overall it just didn't seem appropriate.' 🙄

Frankly I just can't get my head around the fact that Auschwitz is treated like a visitor attraction in the first place and am totally horrified at the mere thought of being in such a place where so much beyond imaginable suffering, pain and human degradation took place...😱
To take young children there is in my mind, child abuse, and if people really feel the need to go there then there should definitely be an age limit for so many reasons! 😥

Agree Cariad. Cannot understand why anyone would choose to go there. Picked Dd up from her school trip there she said it was the worst day of her life. I walked out of Schindlers list. I don’t need the horrific details to be educated about what happened. My father taught history for years he leaves the room if there’s anything about the camps. We can’t bear to hear the details of what was done to those poor poor people

That's rather self indulgent. They lived it, you can at least listen to it.

I’m all for children learning history - the good and the bad. However I think people should be respectful of such places and having crying children with you isn’t. I visited the Anne Frank House and there were a couple with a crying child on the tour. It was really annoying.

Well, they didn't have a choice about living it, I guess. I had relatives of my grandparents' generation and older who did. One of my great uncles was sent to a camp for suspected homosexuality and Communism. I think your relationship to it is probably different when you have a personal connection.

I don't think people have to put themselves through all the grim details in minute detail necessarily. But it's also important that the horror of it is conveyed to some degree. The further we get from it, unfortunately, the greater risk we are of repeating something like this. Look at how the far right is on the rise now in many places.

Why? I know about it I dont need all the grim details or to trail round where it actually happened to realise how horrific it was. Ghoulish.

I think that having an age limit would be appropriate.

My DS is 10 and has been fascinated with World War 2 for a while, I know some will not agree with me but I have allowed him to watch documentaries on WW2 and the rise of Nazism and these ultimately include information and videos of the holocaust. Rightly or wrongly, whenever he has been interested in a period of history I have allowed him to find out all of the facts, even the gruesome facts.

I would not dream of taking him to a concentration camp, even for me this is a step too far. Despite knowing a lot about this period in history he is just too young to grasp the scale of horror that took place there and to subject him to that would be cruel, in my opinion. I think if he was still interested in the topic I would allow him to go from age 15 onwards.

I absolutely disagree. It’s NOT a tourist attraction. It’s an education . No books, film or info can possibly prepare you for the visceral shock of being surrounded by the horrors. You CANNOT understand to any real degree until you see the piles of clothes and glasses and extracted teeth .The baby shoes ripped my heart out. Standing in a gas chamber you can almost hear the screams and feel the terror hundreds of thousands of people experienced in that one room and know over six million people (more than the total population of my country today) were exterminated in such a way .

I really believed I knew what to expect, especially having visited Vad Yashem the holocaust museum/memorial in Israel but I was absolutely floored by the experience. Even now I am in tears typing this. The visitors around me were all very respectful. Some older teenagers had a nervous giggle and were immediately reprimanded and removed by their father . I would NEVER take in young children, not just for their sakes but for the other visitors. I think the recommended age of 14 is about right .

I don't believe I said that? But you crack on...