GCSE year trip to auschwitz - any experience?

[cymruoddicatref]

My daughter (first year GCSE) is being encouraged to take part in this trip next year. She and her friends are reluctant to go. I have not offered a view yet. I am a bit cross that it is put forward as supporting the history curriculum, so that I am going to worry as a parent that her studies will be compromised if she does not go, although it is not necessarily a place I would want her to visit as a young teenager - at least not in a school party. Has anyone else had experience of one of these trips - or turned one down? Has it made a difference to GCSE study either way? Are there any teachers with first hand experience?

I'm a parent rather than a teacher but I organised our school's Auschwitz trip, though it was for Y13. I have been to Auschwitz twice myself now and my eldest four came with me on the first occasion: the youngest of those, a boy, was then 13 (I had left it up to them to decide if they wanted to come, they had the option of staying behind in Kracow). Children under 12 are not supposed to be allowed in to the museum and I was pretty shocked that there were some very young children there, much younger than 12. It is very harrowing, that's for sure.

One of my sons went there with DH, aged about 12. It was informative for him and not traumatising, but of course it depends on the individual child's personality -- and it will feel a bit different going with a school group rather than a parent.

I've been myself and I also found it informative rather than harrowing. IMO the place conjures the horror of those events far less grimly than first-person accounts in books -- Primo Levi and so on.

I do feel slightly that the museum suffers a little from the conversion of a horrific set of events into 'history tourism'; it is hard to preserve the dignity of commemoration when there are coachloads of holiday makers and school trips.

Whatever you decide, I would find it hard to believe that your DD's grasp of the GCSE subject would suffer from not attending. And perhaps many of the museum's learning resources are available on a website if you wanted to make sure that all the relevant information was available to her.

The value of 'being there' I think is to pay respects and to get a sense of immediacy/reality about the Holocaust; and I'm not sure it does achieve that very well, becuae of the inevitable shift into being a tourist destination.

my DD went in her gcse year. she is crazy about history though,and it was incorporated with a trip to Berlin. she was glad she went,and has gone on to study history A level

i had quite a long thread going here somewhere,got some very good advice too

ILT, that?s interesting. DS (Y10) is doing the same trip this half term ? Berlin including Auschwitz. He also loves history, will definitely do it for A level and is already talking of studying it at university. Did your DD get a lot out of it?

OP, my feeling is that like a lot of school trips it falls into the category of not being essential for their studies but may add something a little bit extra ? ?supporting the curriculum? sounds about right to me. Not quite sure why that makes you cross?

I think the reason why I am just a bit cross (not desperately cross) about the link to the curriculum is that it makes me feel as if I ought to lean on her to go, even if she doesn't particularly want to, whereas I would prefer to give her a completely free rein. Interesting responses thankyou - she loves history too, and has read a few novels around the Holocaust, at least one of which made her quite upset - I can understand her reluctance. I am not sure that I would like to visit somewhere like that in a large group. If her peers decide to go, then I expect she will too, but I am a bit uncomfortable with it as a "school trip" destination. Wish we had the Berlin add-on - now that would be interesting.

my DD did get upset,she told me she cried looking at a few displays.

the trip was quite expensive,but i reasoned this was a very interesting place to visit,but never,ever a place i could take all of my children on a day trip,as i would other museums. so the chance to go for her,would not come up again (unless she took herself in adulthooits fuelled her interest,and she often refers to it when seeing or discussing war related things.

she was upset by it though,and she's not an overly sensitive girl.

I don?t mean to offend anyone but shouldn?t a visit to Auschwitz be upsetting? I think I?d be more worried if teenage DCs weren?t at all upset, to be honest.

OP you say you want to give your daughter free rein but also that what her peers are doing will have a bearing, so clearly other people are having an influence on her decision. If she really doesn?t want to go, I wouldn?t make her, I?m sure it won?t harm her GCSE prospects in the slightest. But don?t let her friends choose for her.

I would not make a child go through that experience for the chance of a different exam grade, purely because it is so harrowing. Children have sat GCSEs since time in memorial including the subject without going in person.

I think of a visit there as more than a learning experience, it's an emotional one and the person has to be able to cope with that. The school should ensure those not going receive the education to support the syllabus wether they go or not (assuming this is a paid trip).

In short, I would encourage a child under normal circumstances to go on GCSE trips but Aushwitz is not one of them. If the child isn't ready, then so be it.

I agree being upset is right. However some children will be affected much more deeply. Some in a good way but some in a disturbed way. If there was a chance my child might fall into the latter I would leave it. That's not to say you don't study the subject - which in itself may be upsetting - but I don't think study at that level would cause deep disturbance a visit might.

I say that as a Mum whose intelligent son has, in the past, suffered months of nightmares following a visit to somewhere not even half as harrowing.

The reaction to a visit to Auschwitz will be very individual. It may depend on sensitivity, prior knowledge, family background - a host of different factors. Having been once, with my elder children and elderly (Polish) father, on my second visit with the school I watched the reaction of the Y13 students very carefully. Some (I have to say proobably the brightest) were extraordinarily moved and looked beyond the tourist aspect of the groups going round (we deliberately opted for the students wandering freely, without a guide). A few were less visibly moved, but the visit left no student untouched. I think Auschwitz is harder to take if a visitor has previously read a biography of a survivor. I personally felt sick when I heard the noise and laughter of a group of school children coming from the watchtower at Birkenau. Some children are simply too young.

I can understand the frustration (anger, even) at hearing school parties larking about.

My sister took a school trip to France and visited a WWI cemetery. Her colleague lost his temper with a boy who kept on laughing and sneering at others being upset. The teacher made the mistake of grabbing the boy and... the teacher ended up being suspended and left the school.

I suppose it does depend on the child. I understand that in Germany, it has been part of the curriculum for every child to visit a camp and though they are now very well informed, would worry about the guilt imposed on a generation of young people.

I have been researching websites last week on Auschwitz, as my mother's entire family were murdered there apart from her father and one aunt. Looking at photographs and reading personal accounts of survivors was very affecting and for a child maybe more so even if they have no personal connection. Maybe an actual visit and a guided tour with someone who was a survivor (I think there are volunteers who work there) would be amazingly informative but, again, you know your child best. Would agree about Primo Levi - I still have strong recall of some passages 20 years later.

curtaincall, I am so sorry to hear about your mother's family. I can't imagine what it must be like growing up with that sad knowledge of your family's past.

xx

curtaincall no survivor will be giving guided tours. The guides are mostly young students of history. There is much to be said for walking about on one's own, there is a huge amount of information on boards and plaques.

yellowstone - I read an article in a sunday magazine ages ago about an old man who worked there as a volunteer. Maybe he was just on call to help out when needed? My siblings and I thought of visiting but decided against it in the end. Apart from everything, I think the 'tourism' aspect mentioned in wordwork's previous post would be upsetting.

wordwork - thank you for your kind post. Many families like ours couldn't talk about what happened as it was too difficult, so in a way it was covered over and it's only recently I've been able to reach out and talk about this. My mother was brought up with adults visiting with numbers on their arm and talking about what happened to them. I think there was a lot of secondary trauma and survivor's guilt for this generation. I found photographs of her grandparents and aunts to show her but she just handed them straight back. Suppose she'd just buried all these terrible things. xx

curtaincall this silence seems to have been absolutely standard. I think you are absolutely right about secondary trauma. Not just amongst Jewish survivors but all sorts of other displaced survivors too. I also experienced it first hand but never thought about it as a child or teenager or even a young adult; it's taken years to make sense of the idiosyncrasies of my father.

I assume that there must be, or must have been, a very brave and unusual old man who volunteered as a guide. But there were only a tiny number of Jewish people left in Poland after the War, very few of whom would have chosen to live near Auschwitz for obvious reasons. Today, anyone old enough to remember their experience of Auschwitz would be most unlikely to be fit enough to take tours around, even if they felt emotionally able.

If you feel inclined to visit Auschwitz then you should. Don't be put off by the 'tourism'. It's not promoted by the museum itself, it merely means large groups arriving together on coaches but I think no one would go there without an underlying intention to pay their respect. I just moved away from the groups. If you go at the cold, bleak times of year there will be less people anyway.

Curtaincall, yes, the effects of such secondary trauma must be large -- and perhaps felt more immediately in older age, because earlier memories start to come to the fore then, and have more vividity sometimes than the present. I hope your researches help you and your family live with this awful past.

I went there years ago, only a short while after Poland became more open to visits from foreigners. My guide was an older Polish man, not Jewish, probably a volunteer. He was very good, spoke with great sensitivity and humanity and feeling. The thing that struck me about him most, though, and something I still feel uncomfortable about now, is that one of his first remarks was to ask us to keep in mind not only the millions of Jewish victims but also the thousands of non-Jewish Polish victims. When the Germans moved into Poland swathes of opposition, and of the liberal/professional class generally were imprisoned and killed. I am sure that his reminder was given without any lack of respect for the vastly greater numbers of Jewish victims, and I can certainly understand the need for remembering all victims, but I felt pained by what seemed a little like a kind of rivalry for acknowledgement of suffering. It seemed sad that it was there, though I do understand its importance to him. I'm sure that Polish national consciousness around the Holocaust is still very tortured.

Wordwork I cannot imagine for a single moment there was any intention in his mind at rivalry, nothing more than remembering each and every victim of the Holocaust, of whom the vast majority were, of course, Jewish. That is a truly awful thing to attribute to the old man (and by extension to all Poles). Perhaps you come from a Polish family who feels that way (though I would be very surprised at any non-Jewish Polish feeling that way); I most certainly don't.

I am sure that each family who had its older generation killed in the camps faces similar issues and I find it shows a huge disrepect to all those who fought and were killed, whether they were killed for reasons of politics, race or anything else. It also shows huge insensitivity to the feelings of their families who are as capable of feeling empathy for the Jewish plight as anyone else, perhaps more so.

I don't quite understand your last sentence about the Polish national consciousness either.

Anyhow, a deeply upsetting post, about as bad as it gets.

OP, I don't know how old your dd is - what is 1st yr GCSE - 14? I think it really depends on the sensitivity of the child and their maturity. I think my ds is very sensitive and it would severly traumatise him. Mind you, he is only 11 still. We live in Germany, quite close to Dachau so he will be taken with the school, as every Germany child has to visit a concentration camp.

I would deem this trip for your dd non-essential, and I wouldn't feel pressured into feeling you ought to send her.

Is there a jewish museum somewhere near where you live? I bet that would adequately summarise the information. Visiting one for real obviously gives such a real perspective of the sheer daunting size and scale. I visited Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria when I was 16. It left a deep impression on me, but I don't think this would necessarily be necessary for school work.

I would like to say one thing though -

The vast majority of the holocaust weren't jewish though. There were approximately 11 million holocaust victims in total, 6 million were jewish, so a majority figure, and certainly the single largest group, but 5 million victims were not jewish, millions of Poles, Soviets, Romani, homosexual, handicapped, political, many who hadn't done anything 'wrong' at all, but they looked funny at someone or pissed off their neighbour.

I don't see it as a rivalry, more as a need for recognition and understanding that so many people, I think Poles being the 2nd largest group, suffered so terribly.

I think that's right Ernest.
My Grandfather was Polish and escaped, his entire family having been killed. There were quite a few where we lived as they gravitated to work down the pits.

They were always at odds to point out just how many poles had been slguhtered by the nazis. Not to denigrate from the jews, more because they felt they and their dead loved ones had been forgotton.

And if you take victims (other than military) of Nazis outside of the concentration camps, the overall figure for holocaust victims could be as high as 17 million, which would in fact put the (still enormous) 6 million jewish figure not in the majority.

It is not a competition, and so many many people suffered it is impossible to compute, but each of these groups deserves to be and should be remembered.

I remember being very surprised and shocked and touched by the british memorial in Mauthausen. I'd had no idea that british people were also sent there. Many POW and I think over 70 nationalities suffered in concentration camps. I think people should know and understand this too.

I'm sorry that my post was upsetting, Yellowstone. I didn't mean to attribute any ambivalence to the man, of course. I was thinking more to do with the vexed way in which personal trauma always has to be experienced within a social and political context: I don't mean the Polish context; I mean the international significance that Auschwitz has.

I really do apologise for any offence. I'm not from a Polish family, no. My husband is Anglo-Polish.

The book that I always have in mind when I think about the horror that was inflicted on Poland when the Nazis made it the location for this atrocity is a book called Shtetl I think by someone called Gillian Schlomo which paints Poland's status as Europe's first truly multicultural society, with a very rich mutually nourishing culture of interaction. I'm not sure what you thought I might have meant by the 'tortured national consciousness'. I don't know how a nation could be other than traumatised by having such a past inflicted on it.

I am sorry for having accidentally injected a note of controversy onto the thread. I was stuck by what the man said. He was pained, genuinely pained, in a way that has stayed with me for years, by the possibility of a category of victims being absent from the mind of international visitors.

(I didn't mean to cross out that name, Gillian Schlomo, though google seems not to recognise it so I must have got it wrong.)

Total brainfail. The author is Eva Hoffman. I mixed her up with a whole other woman.

I do recommend the book.

She is 14. She will be 15 at the time of the visit. As a parent, this is not somewhere I would choose to take her. Most 14 year olds (in my limited experience!) tend to follow the lead of their peers. I won't stop her going if they all decide to go, even though, as I have said, I have reservations. But I do wonder at the tacit assumption (this is a "school" trip, and not an unusual one by the looks of things) that it is appropriate to encourage school children to visit these sorts of places. None of us can truly grasp the horror of millions of dead - I have read the Telegraph account of a similar visit - Visions of Hell - written a couple of years ago, and I cannot help wondering whether it is wise or appropriate to subject busloads of teenagers to this sort of experience - maybe I am too protective, but why is it thought appropriate to invite my daughter to stand with her class mates in a gas chamber, or to see twisted piles of glasses and mounds of human hair - some will be traumatised, some will not have the maturity to take it on board other than superficially, or as a history lesson, but is there also even a danger of desensitizing children to horror I wonder.

And however sensitively they behave, (and no matter how some of them might feel inside) I suspect they will still be piling off the bus in their designer hoodies, getting their phones back out as soon as they are back on the bus, heading for the nearest gift shop/tearoom etc. Call me old fashioned - it just doesn't seem right to me.