Aushwitz...Year 11...help to prepare?

[GypsyMoth]

hi all

dd age 15 is going to Berlin with the school in a few weeks. as part of the trip a visit to Poland is planned,and a day will be spent visiting Auschwitz.

we have been told to prepare our dc for a visit.

wondering which is the best way? anyone been or know anyone who has?

she visited flanders and the somme back in june with the school,and was very moved. she has a massive interest in this area of history so she knows what its all about,but its going to be a hard day for her.

any ideas how to prepare? feel tearful just thinking about this.

no,i'm betting none of them did ever get over it! just can't imagine re-living that every single day.

i haven't heard of the white rose group before. hope her history teacher knows about all this extra info you brill mumsnetters are passing on,wouldn't want him put on the spot or anything!

Hope your dd copes with it ok.

"getting over it" was badly put obviously. I mean they were often unable to rebuild a new life afterwards which was not always overshadowed by the spectre of the horrors they went through. I remember seeing a documentary on Holocaust survivors who were living in Florida in their old age. In outward appearance they had successfully rebuilt their lives from scratch and worked hard to achieve material security for themselves and their families, yet it was very sad to see how so many of them in old age were troubled by recurring nightmares, heard voices speaking to them from trees etc.

One man's very sad story touched me a lot. He had survived Auschwitz , had married, had children, built a nice home for them and lived in good material conditions but his own son found he could not live with what his father had experienced and was so broken with the knowledge of what his fther had been through that he committed suicide when he was 17. Can you imagine it? The poor old man.

I think people forget that it was not over whe nthe war was over and the children and grandchildren are also suffering because of it.