Trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau for 14 y o

[NoraLuka]

DD2 is 14 and her school are thinking about a trip to Poland next year, including visiting Auschwitz. I think she’s too young for this and would be upset - of course visiting a concentration camp would be upsetting for anyone but I worry she wouldn’t be able to cope with it like an adult would. She is quite sensitive about death anyway and took literally years to get over her grandmother dying unexpectedly.

Has anyone’s teenager visited Auschwitz, and how did they deal with it?

DD does know about WW2, Hitler etc. but mainly through reading and history lessons.

I think it’s important that we all know about the Holocaust, but I worry that this would be too much for a young teenager.

It's next year so she will be mid-teens surely.

I went to Terezin at that age and it was very eye-opening but not disturbing. I already knew that awful things had happened. It was a way of engaging with that meaningfully.

I think it’s too young. The Jewish schools do it as a year 12 trip which is about right as it’s a tough trip.

German teenagers do it at that age.
I think if it's carefully mediated then it's an excellent thing to do. They'll be doing other stuff too and there will be preparation and debriefing, I imagine

You know your own child better than anyone. There's no shame in taking the decision that she is not ready to make the trip. Others may be OK, but that's for their parents to decide.

I’ve been twice.
There’s a deep family connection. I went once at 14, and again when I was 24.
At 14, I obviously felt emotional, and the sheer horror of the place wasn’t lost on me....but I feel like it didn’t quite feel “real” to me. It was difficult for me at that age to hear the guide telling me “XYZ happened here” and really comprehend it properly.
However, when I visited again as an adult, and mother of 2 at the time, there’s no other way to say it except it was fucking horrific The baby clothes and tiny children’s shoes in display cabinets hit me like a bus and I sobbed
I’m not saying it didn’t have an impact on 14yo me, because it definitely did, but it hit me a billion times harder as an adult.

My teen did at the same age, also sensitive, it was a moving experience but important, at that age it's sensible to let them develop resilience.

I took my DC when they were around 12 and 16; we also went to the Schindler's factory museum, and had previously visited the Jewish museum and the holocaust memorial in Berlin, the peace museum in Hiroshima, Che Guevara's mausoleum and various other sites and memorials to some of the worst parts of world history. They coped, though DD has once or twice asked why we have been to so many places like that when all her friends go to all-inclusive resorts on holiday... (we do do fun stuff too!)

I don't think 14/15 is too young. Has the school run that trip before? I presume there would be a lot of preparation and study ahead of the actual visit.

Once you have seen something, you can never unsee it.

No,absolutely not.

After a lot of thought, and discussion, we took our 15 and 14 year olds to the Killing Fields in Cambodia. Our 10 and 7 year olds were also there, but we were very careful about what they saw (really, without the commentary, it’s just peaceful gardens). My dc found it extremely moving, but I will say that when we asked the two older children if they would like to see the prison in Phnom Penh they both felt it would be too much.

I think any such trip needs to be carefully undertaken.

I've taken the trip with year 10 (14-15) and they were great. One of the girls came to hug me as I cried. The full impact won't hit them as they aren't mature enough to understand the scale.

I went at 14 it didn't disturb me, I mean it wasn't nice and very sad but I'd didn't have any negative affect on me in the way you are talking about

I think that some 15 year olds would be able to cope with this trip whereas others would not. You know your own child best. I know that both my boys would have found this difficult at 15.

I know for sure my ds would not be able to cope with it (just turned 16). I found it utterly devastating as an adult when I visited.

it's s tough trip.
and very emotionally challenging - on one hand there is the awful history on the other hand it's a school trip with teenage silliness and fun.

I think it's important for teens and around 15ish is about right.

If she is sensitive I don’t think it would be a good idea, as an adult I threw a book with graphic descriptions of Auschwitz in the bin, I love books but I was so distressed I couldn’t even have it in the house. I felt as though the evil of it had touched me somehow. I would never go there.

Talk to her about it and see how she feels if it is needed or recommended for a GCSE subject, but I think it would probably be too much for her.

I went at 16 on trip and it was totally fine.

I found it fascinating and not traumatic.

I went to a concentration camp on a school trip when I was about 14. To be honest, the fact that I was younger was better as, looking back, I didn't understand the full scale of what had actually happened there, I was still slightly too young to get it fully I think.

I don't think I could go and visit one now.

DD1 went on a German exchange at 14 and they visited Dachau. The teacher in charge of the trip is a quite fantastic and very sensible person, who had run the trip many times before, so we were OK with trusting her judgement. It seems to have been handled well and DD found it suitably sobering and thought provoking without tipping too far over into trauma. But I'd definitely ask the staff some questions about how they handle it. And also whether she would be the younger or older end of the age group who are going, which could make a big difference to how they pitch things.

I went there as a 20 year old with absolutely no connections with the place or the war. I found it unsettling. I saw a young person there sat on the floor and sobbing, another being sick. Personally I think it's a bit young.

I don't think I'd be able to go there myself, and I'm a mid-40's mother of three.

Thank you for all your thoughts, it’s helpful to hear the different points of view. I will talk to her about it and think about it, we don’t need to decide right away.

I’m not sure about it not having as much impact on a teenager as an adult, although if this had been DD1 at that age and she’d wanted to go I would have let her I think.

The school hasn’t run this trip before as far as I know, we are in France and they normally just do a week in the UK, Spain or Germany for language students!

I guess it’s about how we keep memories alive for the future. We had a concentration camp survivor come to our school to do a talk about his experiences in about Y9 or 10, and I remember it clearly 25 years later. He was a small, softly spoken elderly man who still had a number tattooed on his arm - I remember he let us all look at it. Kids now won’t have that kind of experience.

I think you know your own child best. It can be quite traumatic for some children (and adults) to see, and at 14 she will still be very young. As a Jewish mother, I personally cannot bring myself to go there, the pictures and stories and history disturb me badly enough without seeing it too, and that's as an adult.
I would discuss it with her nearer the time and you can guage for yourself then whether you feel she can handle it.

No way absolutely not.

I think it’s fine. I mean she’s 14 years of age, most kids have read/been taught lots about the Holocaust before then, and she will hear all about it from friends anyway.

In my opinion, things like this are supposed to be moving/have an impact on you. If she doesn’t want to go of course that’s different, but I think you’d be unreasonable to stop her if she wants to.

I took my daughter when she was 13. She had studied the Holocaust in year 9 history, so in many ways, she knew what to expect. I don't think visiting Auschwitz on a summer's day can really convey the horror of what took place there in the same way that reading a book or watching a film about it can.

I'm especially glad that she has been, as her father has fallen into the QAnon/conspiracy theory/anti-Semitic rabbit hole and she's certainly better educated than him about the Holocaust and able to argue against his bullshit.