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.

I know I have studied history 🙄

@MsTSwift

Of course it needs to be taught but its not necessary to do that to expose young teens to the details. I walked out of Schindler’s list. I literally cannot bear it.

Again, I disagree. Teaching it in a sanitised way without allowing people to feel even the tiniest bit of the horror that people lived through seems pointless to me. We may as well just not bother teaching it at all.

I think it should be horrifying. The emotional impact comes from the feeling of being disturbed. Frankly, I think it would be fucking awful for our kids to learn this stuff without feeling anything at all. So dehumanising.

I think this thread shows how comfy a lot of people have had it. Words like traumatised etc being thrown around due to reading or watching something. That’s not trauma! Being ripped apart from your family, stuck in a cattle truck for days, seeing people being shot, raped, beaten, forced into work. That’s trauma!

If you had to walk out of Schindler's list, which as others have said is a very sanitised version, then your previous comment about it being sick make sense.

Not every person feels that way. Some devour the details and go onto study it, read everything they can re it.

What is the value of being disturbed? Nobody knows what's going on in someone's head?
I will never forget breaking down during a birthday treat to see Bambi or my 7 year olds distress when Aslan was killed.
You do not know what is going on in a 14 year olds head and he/ she will certainly not be telling mates its overwhelming.
I would never watch Schindlers list,ever.

I know quite a few people whose children went at a similar age. Without exception, the children seem to have found the experience moving, thought provoking and interesting. Helped them a lot with their school work and their understanding of the world!

@MsTSwift

Some things you can’t unknow. I watched a documentary on Netflix recently about a nazi trial and one of the things I heard on that program (which I switched off) has haunted me ever since and I think about it every day. You can appreciate the horror without immersing yourself in the details of it.

But she will already know the details from studying it, she won’t learn all the details of the Holocaust from walking around a camp. And she certainly won’t be ‘immersing herself in the details’ at the visit - that also will more likely come from studying the time period.

@NorthLodgeAvenue

What is the value of being disturbed? Nobody knows what's going on in someone's head? I will never forget breaking down during a birthday treat to see Bambi or my 7 year olds distress when Aslan was killed. You do not know what is going on in a 14 year olds head and he/ she will certainly not be telling mates its overwhelming. I would never watch Schindlers list,ever.

In my own experience, I would say that the value in being disturbed is that it makes you care more deeply.

If you feel nothing, then it doesn't matter.

But she will already know the details from studying it, she won’t learn all the details of the Holocaust from walking around a camp. And she certainly won’t be ‘immersing herself in the details’ at the visit - that also will more likely come from studying the time period.

Yes, again, I don't know what things people think you will see when you visit a concentration camp in 2021?!

I've been, I think ist ok for a 14 year old, there is nothing horrific shown but the whole place has a very sobering atmosphere, the piles of belongings displayed and so on. Definitely worth a visit, I took my DS who was 8 and he really benefitted from it.

I'm Jewish, I've not been there, but my dad has and said he found it fairly 'sterile' and that other, less 'cleaned up' camps were more emotionally powerful. My mum visited Auschwitz when she was about that age and was totally overwhelmed but then, when she went, most of her father's family had been murdered there barely 10 a decade earlier, so that's understandable (NB, this wasn't to show what the Nazis did to the Jews per se, but sponsored by the Communist government she lived under to show the evil of fascism in general).

I'd be OK with my kids visiting even at a younger age, and even as descendents of survivors, but I don't know if that's because we are sadly familiar with the narrative. I don't think there'd be anything there overwhelming for most people.

to go to auschwitz is to see the scale.
the place is vast and what's visible is only part of the original site.
then there is the exhibitions and stories.
and the atmosphere.

I went on a school trip to one of the camps...My Jewish grandmother who lost her family in the Holocaust thought people who visited them were mad. She spent many years in hiding to avoid setting foot in one so couldn't understand why you'd voluntarily go. I think it's important though. But don't send her op if you think she can't cope.

In Germany all school children get to visit as part of education. She's not too young.

Personally, I don't need to be disturbed to care deeply.

I don't think a 14 year old who is already in a state of flux and experiencing loss due to the pandemic needs to be subjected to this trip.

Being in Poland, seeing the road signs for sites of atrocites was more than enough for me.

We took our DC there and to Schindler's factory museum when they were 14 & 11. We'd talked about it beforehand plus they'd both seen/read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. They were both totally fine with it and asked lots of questions. Not traumatised at all.

Like SlamLikeAGuitar I think it had a bigger impact on me as a mother. Heartbreaking to see the children's items on display.

God, its beginning to sound like a trip to a bloody theme park.

I’d absolutely send her. It’s supposed to be distressing and upsetting. That’s the whole point. If you’re really concerned, speak to the school in advance about how they’re approaching it.

Personally, I don't need to be disturbed to care deeply.

Maybe not, but I wonder. The vast majority of people care far more about stuff when they have an emotional reaction to it rather than just an intellectual one. Hence all of the deliberately emotive charity fundraising campaigns etc. There is a reason why they try to evoke an emotional response.

That kind of experienceshouldbe deeply shocking and disturbing...people need to understand the reality of what happened.

Agreed. Without learning we will forget, when we forget it'll happen again.

I think that age is fine but you know her best.

Also agree with others that children often don't really/ aren't really about to fully understand. To relate it to real life.

I was always quite interested but emotionally not connected when that age with horrors and I think that's very strandsrd for that age.

Now an adult I viscerally feel it.

I had to leave the excellent museum in Berlin on site of the ss hq, the topography of terror. Loads of photos and info never seen or heard about things before.

Only got a third of the way through. The kids were fine, 11 and 13.

I would let mine go 100% and most children would find it really interesting and a terrible thing but not really have that sort of. Connection reaction deep inside thing.

I hope that makes sense!

My son did a school WW1 battlefields trip when his was 12; they visited the mass graveyards and he found the grave of his great uncle who’d died at 21. The following year they went to Berlin and visited a concentration camp (amongst other things). He was moved and learnt a lot from both experiences, but he was not upset.

but he was not upset

good for him.

Not the same, but I saw Anne Frank's House at 14, it didn't disturb me, but introduced me to the topic and opened my eyes a bit, I wasn't horrified by it, it just made me start to think. I think it's ok.