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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

Original poster

Trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau for 14 y o

122 replies

NoraLuka · 03/09/2021 18:16

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.

OP posts:
Kanaloa · 03/09/2021 19:18

Hear all about the trip from friends is what I mean.

Buzzer3555 · 03/09/2021 19:18

We took our daughter when she was 15 and she was moved to tears but i have just asked her and she said it was a life changing experience and taught her so much about tolerance versus bigotry. On reflection she is glad she went.

Elladisenchanted · 03/09/2021 19:21

@noraluka my grandma didn't go through the camps but was a child refugee who came to the UK after kristillnacht and experienced the rising anti semitism against her and her family before they fled Austria. Her story was compiled into a small mini book with pictures as part of ongoing efforts, I think it was by a local organisation. My grandma is in her 90s now. There is definitely a sense of the last of the generation of survivors slipping away, and an urgency to record their stories before it is too late.

Ticksallboxes · 03/09/2021 19:46

I would skip the trip and get her to read If This Is a Man by Primo Levi.

I read it at university and it was changed the way I thought about the world.

What he went through was completely horrendous, but it also makes you realise how unbelievably strong the human spirit is.

mumwon · 03/09/2021 19:46

Ds who is sensitive went there & later to Hiroshima
I gave each of my dc John Hersey's Hiroshima & Anne Frank's diary to read in their teens because I think its important - I think you need to discuss it fully with her & see how she feels WITHOUT putting your worries about her & talk to her teacher & ask what preparation they are doing before this & afterwards

ChilliChoco · 03/09/2021 20:37

I went as a teenager and didn't think I was a particularly emotional teenager but I had nightmares for years after. So no way would I send a sensitive 14 yo.

Bagelsandbrie · 03/09/2021 20:43

Totally depends on the individual teen I think.

I would have found it fascinating and moving as a teen - I was very interested in ww2 and the holocaust (I still am as an adult) but I think I would find it more emotional now as a mum as someone upthread said. I think only you know whether it’s appropriate or not.

underneaththeash · 03/09/2021 20:47

We took the children to oradour-sur-glane over the summer. It’s a martyr village where basically the nazi’s came and murdered the vast majority of the population. Including children and babies, who they locked in the church, which was then burned down.
I found it really upsetting, it went over DD’s head - she’s 10. Both the boys found it really poignant, lots of questions were asked afterwards.
I’d se f her, if she wants to go.

WhyOhWhyOhWhyyyy · 03/09/2021 21:02

I did that trip with school when I was the same age. It was a very humbling experience and I’ll always remember it, I’m glad my parents sent me. It was obviously emotional, I remember the silence on the coach afterwards, but I don’t remember any of the teenagers being so emotional that they couldn’t cope. I think send her, it’ll be character building.

Oblomov21 · 03/09/2021 21:05

Ds1 went in year 10, aged 15, as a polish exchange with a school linked to his school.
I think he was very humbled by it and I was pleased how shocked he was and the way we talked about it afterwards as very respectful.

So no, I think it's a good age.

toolazytothinkofausername · 03/09/2021 21:08

I'm 33 and would never visit a concentration camp. I cry even when I watch about it on TV.

RedToothBrush · 03/09/2021 21:09

I remember what we were taught about the holocaust age 14. It wasn't nice. We watched some of the BBC programmes. I think it was world at war and it was graphic. Still remember it.

Our school did a trip to Auschwitz the same year.

What surprises me here is that some many posters think its inappropriate as a subject for this age group. Its a horrible subject but something that's really important to learn about all them same. Precisely because the world isn't always nice.

I can't help but feel that the desire to shield kids from this, just means many never really learn about the subject at all anymore. If they don't do it that year then thats it. They drop history before GCSE and there's never a time for them to learn about it.

There are few things all kids really should have as part of their essential general knowledge (beyond English and Maths of course) and this is one.

Going there, is a humbling experience and puts much in life in perspective...

toolazytothinkofausername · 03/09/2021 21:12

@RedToothBrush

I remember what we were taught about the holocaust age 14. It wasn't nice. We watched some of the BBC programmes. I think it was world at war and it was graphic. Still remember it.

Our school did a trip to Auschwitz the same year.

What surprises me here is that some many posters think its inappropriate as a subject for this age group. Its a horrible subject but something that's really important to learn about all them same. Precisely because the world isn't always nice.

I can't help but feel that the desire to shield kids from this, just means many never really learn about the subject at all anymore. If they don't do it that year then thats it. They drop history before GCSE and there's never a time for them to learn about it.

There are few things all kids really should have as part of their essential general knowledge (beyond English and Maths of course) and this is one.

Going there, is a humbling experience and puts much in life in perspective...

But there is a big difference between learning about the Holocaust and actually visiting one of the concentration camps. I agree every 14 year old should learn about WW2, but not every 14 year old should be expected to visit one of the concentration camps.
RedToothBrush · 03/09/2021 21:17

I think anything you have the opportunity to learn first hand is doubly worthwhile though. I don't recall there ever being any concerns about the idea of going for our year at all.

None of this 'they are a really sensitive type' stuff.

HalfTermHalfTerm · 03/09/2021 21:22

I haven’t ever been Auschwitz (although I have visited a different concentration camp on a history trip) so I can’t comment on it specifically, but I don’t really see how 15, bordering on being a young adult, can be too young. In fact I would image that teenagers would be less badly affected by it than adults.

You know your daughter though. If the negatives of the trip will outweigh the benefits for her then she would be better off not going.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 03/09/2021 21:28

Two of my boys visited concentration camps during choir trips in their early to mid teens, and both were fine. They found it a fascinating and thought-provoking trip - emotional, of course, but not traumatic.

@NoraLuka, you will have the intervening time to prepare your dd and give her the emotional tools to cope with the visit.

serialname · 03/09/2021 21:32

I haven't been there. But I have been to the genocide museums commemorating those killed by Pol Pot. I found it very distressing and wouldn't want a child to go to similar places on a school trip. Visit with their parents may be ok depending on the child.

Our children need to learn from the lessons of the past, but there is a difference between reading and learning about genocide and being in the very place where so many people were murdered and seeing their faces, clothes, bones or belongings. A sensitive child shouldn't be asked to face this without their parent at hand.

Mischance · 03/09/2021 21:35

I would not want this - too much trauma for one so young. They can learn about these things from visiting speakers and the internet. They do not need to stand there and gaze at it all.

MythicalBiologicalFennel · 03/09/2021 21:36

What surprises me here is that some many posters think its inappropriate as a subject for this age group

Can't recall anyone saying that on this thread Confused

Like a pp said there is a difference between studying a subject and visiting a place where so many people were brutally murdered. Most people in the world know about the Holocaust without having set foot in death camps.

TwinMum35 · 03/09/2021 21:42

It’s a very common trip for those doing GCSE history. Hundreds if not more British 15yr olds make the trip every year.

Only you know if it’s appropriate for your child x

Travielkapelka · 03/09/2021 21:44

@MythicalBiologicalFennel I said it was too young. I only say this as it’s a standard year 12 trip in the Jewish schools and it feels at 16/17 they have that level of maturity to process it in a way i am not sure a year 10 would. It’s not too young per se for younger but I think that a couple of years old would have more inspect

LynetteScavo · 03/09/2021 21:46

Some young teens will visit and not fully comprehend what happened because, for many possible reasons. Others will understand very well and they my struggle to deal with what they are learning.

Personally I spend most of our Holocaust history lessons at school looking anywhere but at the picture of the victims. As an adult I couldn't visit a concentration camp. I don't even have the words to say why, but I feel terrified at the thought. It's very, very important young people learn about what happened. Only you as your DDs parent can decide if the trip is appropriate for your DC.

I wouldn't let DS1 go. I would probably want DD2 to go. I would talk with DD and let her decide for herself. There is no right or wrong answer.

Passmeamenuatthetottenham · 03/09/2021 21:46

Maybe Auschwitz is different, but I went to Sachsenhausen as a teenager and don't remember anything graphic. The horror comes from knowing what happened in the place you are standing, and as I said, at 14 I don't think I was mature enough to fully get my head around that. Same when I read the Diary of Anne Frank. I knew terrible stuff had happened, but I was well into adulthood when it really hit me, and even now I can't really get my head around it. But as I said, I would find it far more difficult to go now as an adult than I did as a teen.

Maskless · 03/09/2021 21:57

I went a month after my fifteenth birthday.

Same trip I also went to a much more chilling camp, called Majdanek. Auschwitz is sanitised and much less horrible by comparison.

Neither visit floored me or devastated me.

TillyTopper · 03/09/2021 21:57

My two DS didn't go with school but we had a family holiday in Poland. We went to the Jewish Museum in Warsaw and a few other places - they found it interesting especially with the GCSE History connection. However, when we went south we decided not to go to Auschwitz as planned as one DS said he didn't want to go, he just found it all so incredibly sad. He was 14. I was glad we were there as a family so he had a choice tbh.

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