We plan to visit Dachau and it looks as if we can get a 2.5-hour guided tour in English for 3 EURO each.
Has anyone done this? Is this a better way to see it than buying the audioguide (around same price)?
Does the tour cover everything in the memorial or are there things we will still need to take time in seeing before or after? We do plan to see the movie before our tour already.
Just trying to plan how much time we need there.
Thanks for any suggestions!
The memorial also has their own 2.5 hour GUIDED tours in English for 3 EURO a piece so that is what I was asking about.
If you are referring to the same James that runs "In His Shoes" tours from Munich, he sounds great. The only drawback for us is the price since we have 3 kids (ages 15, 12, and 9). We can go much cheaper with a group train ticket, free entry, and then the 3 EURO each guided tour rather than paying 22 EURO each for James' tour.
While I am sure that James is awesome, are the guides hired by the memorial not good as well? Anyone have 1st hand experiences with them?
The bigger question to ask is why are you taking a 9 year old to a Concentration Camp. Even the 12 year old is really too young to go this place of death. This is not a place for children to visit.
I took the tour provided by the Memorial 6 years ago, when it cost 2,50€. I've only been there once, and after taken the guided tour I had no interest in the audia guide, so I have no opinion of it. However, I have used audio guides on several occasions and I found them to be very good. If you can't get there in time to register for one of the guided tours, at 11:00 and 13:00 most days, I wouldn't hesitate to do the audio guide, but I would prefer the tour with a guide because you can ask questions.
I took the 1 PM tour and after it was over, there was only one documentary film left in the day, in German. If you plan to take the 1 PM tour and don't understand German, you need to do the film first (11:30 or 12:30). If you take the 11:00 tour, you can watch the 2 PM film or, since you probably won't have eaten lunch, grab a sandwich at the cafeteria and catch to 3 PM film.
If there are two to five of you, buy a Muenchen XXL (inner 2 zones) Gruppen Tageskarte (day ticket for 2 - 5 people) for 14,80€ (only about 3€ more than a day ticket for just the inner zone, which you would probably want anyway). This will cover you travel to the Dachau S-Bahnstation on the S2 (Richtung, direction, Petershausen) as we;; as the #726 bus to the Memorial, which you will catch in front of the Dachau station. The bus stop will be well marked. It's easy to get to on your own; no good reason to buy an overpriced, 3rd party tour package.
You can find complete information here.
Ms. Jo - we are taking our children because both of our oldest have separately learned about concentration camps in their Social Studies classes this year. It is part of our school system's curriculum for World History in 6th and 9th grades. They are both history buffs and are eager to see all of the WWII sites that they have read about. Our oldest has been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. I personally feel that educating our young will help stop these horrors from happening again.
The memorial's website only mentions that the documentary film is not appropriate for children under 12 so I will be sitting with our 9 year old while the rest of our family sees the film. I hope to see it later in the day or I may not get to see it at all.
I do appreciate your concern for my parenting choices though...
As for the value of outside tours, according to information on the the Memorial's own website, "commercial" guides only have to take a "short course". The site gives seven dates for 4 hrs courses, but doesn't say if a prospective guide must attend all seven or only one of the dates. They then must take a test, which is, I assume, to guide a "tour" on their own. According to information that used to be on the Memorial's site, their own guides must take a one year course.
In reality, I suspect that most commercial guides are former Memorial guides. From what I observed on my tour by a Memorial trained guide their training must be extensive. I doubt that private companies have the time to train guides as extensively as does the Memorial. Private companies probably just steal guides already trained by the Memorial by offering them more money.
My guide presented far more information in 2½ hours than I can remember. I don't know how an outside tour guide could offer anything more of significance.
seahunt, I didn't mean my comment to be a judgement on your parenting choices.
It is simply the fact that unless you have been someplace like this, no matter how much you have learned in school, the reality of being there can hit a person really hard. Many adults struggle with visiting here, so kids find it even more troubling and haunting. That is why the suggested age on the website is 12.
No matter how much a 9 year old has learned about the Holocaust, do they really understand that people were worked to death, starved to death, shot on a whim? What school goes into this theme that intense and deep at this age? How do you explain this to a young child when grown-ups don't even understand the hows and whys.
To the OP:
I commend you for taking the time to educate your children about this issue. I have been to Dachau a couple of times and strongly recommend it.
That said, I do want to make sure that you are aware that the memorial site itself cautions against those under 12 attending (and not just in terms of seeing the film). If you haven't already been there yourself, I can tell you that it is significantly more powerful than the Holocaust Museum in D.C. (which I have also been to multiple times).
The following is from the Guidelines for Visitors which can be found on the memorial's website as a PDF:
The memorial FAQs also includes the following:
Q: Is the Memorial Site appropriate for children?
A: There is no special exhibition for children at the Dachau Memorial Site, and some of the content may not be appropriate for children under 12; however, visitors will not be turned away based on age.
Whatever your final decision, I just wanted to make sure that you were making it with as much information as possible.
On the guide issue, only guides licensed by the memorial are supposed to provide information at the site. I think you will find the memorial site guides to be very good. Of course, they can't hit every possible exhibit -- you could easily spend a half a day or more at the site -- but they hit the main information and (importantly) should help weave it into a larger narrative. I think you would find it useful and well worth the $.
Just a thought ... the new National Socialism Documentation Center in Munich is now open, in Briennerstraße on the site of the former Nazi party headquarters. It might be a way for the younger ones to learn about the horrors of the Nazi era, without the intensity of being on the Dachau grounds. If the Munich Doku-Zentrum is as good as the one in Nürnberg (I'll find out when I get to Munich a couple of weeks from now), it will be well worthwhile.
I took the English tour at Dachau a few years ago and was very impressed. Our tour guide was a graduate student who was incredibly thorough. He had a binder with a lot of supplementary information and photos that he shared with us. He definitely went over the allotted time (probably 3-3.5 hours), and that seemed to annoy some people, but we really enjoyed ourselves (as much as you can at a concentration camp). I'd highly recommend the guided tour over an audio guide. We watched the movie first, then met up with the tour, which included the area outside the camp, the grounds, the museum, and the crematorium.
Thanks, everyone. I guess I really don't know what to do then about my 9 year-old. Being the third boy, he is much more grown-up than other kids his age - he hangs out with the 12 year old and the other 12 year olds in our neighborhood. If it was my first son at age 9, I would never consider taking the boys at that age. Plus, he has a short attention span and will probably tune out the guide anyway. Maybe if I had something on an iPod for him to listen to or a game app to play with earphones then he would not be exposed to the horror stories?
Ms. Jo - it was my older 2 who learned about concentration camps in school this year, not my 9 year-old.
The new Documentation Center sounds neat except I believe that we were planning on going to one in Berchtesgaden later in our trip. If anyone has been to both and can compare, that would be helpful in making the choice.
I know my husband is absolutely not missing Dachau so I'd probably have to be the one that stayed behind if we decided not to take the 9 year old. I would be pretty bummed since this is probably a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me to see one. I am hoping that the earphone thing might be a solution.
If anyone has taken a child younger than 12, can you share your experiences of ways to make it work? Too bad that they don't have a drop-in childcare there like an Ikea store or something!
Dear Seahunt,
Sometimes as parents we have to make hard choices. I know it would be disappointing for you not to visit the camp....but it could actually be traumatic for your 9 year old if you do visit. It might even be hard on your 12 year old. Reading about the Holocaust, visiting a museum...it is not at all the same as walking through the gates of an actual camp. I think you would spend so much of your time avoiding areas he/they really aren't emotionally ready to see (like the crematorium) and exhibits that are just too stark that you would not be able to truly experience the camp yourself, anyway. In my experience, you don't just visit...you also spend a lot of time processing, contemplating, quietly reflecting. All of which would be hard to do while constantly making sure your child doesn't see anything that will greatly disturb him. And trying to do this for 2.5-4 hours? Surely not a good fit for a child with a short attention span. I urge you to think of what this would be like for your son(s), as well as to be considerate of your fellow visitors and their experience visiting the camp. My daughter was 15 when we visited Dachau, and it was a very emotional experience for her, but one I think she was mature enough to process. I understand your desire to instill in your children the understanding of what happened to help ensure it does not happen again. But I think you would be truly misguided to bring your younger son(s) to the camp before they are emotionally mature enough for such an overwhelming experience. Let your husband and oldest son visit. Take the younger ones to other WWII sites or to other activities altogether. Hopefully you will have the opportunity to visit later in life. And if not, you will have made one of the many sacrifices we parents make...for the sake of your kids.
Just my two cents worth.
I have to agree with Ruth. It is very different being there, than learning about it in books, watching films and visiting museums. I have been to several halocaust museums in several countries. As sobering as they are, it was nothing like being at Dachau. I've been there too, and if it were me I would not take the younger children there. Life is full of choices and sacrifices. I would personally choose to miss it for the sake of my children's mental well being than to subject them to things that could scar them for a very long time.
If it is really important for you to go, is there any way your husband and oldest child could go, then you could go at another time while they do something else?
I don't know what we will do in the end but it is making me think about our whole month-long trip to Europe. If I am a bad parent if I choose to take my kids to Dachau, am I also going to regret taking them to:
* Normandy to see WWII sights and American Cemetery? I kind of hoped that them seeing Dachau before these would help explain why we as Americans were a part of WWII.
* Catacombs in Paris?
* Coliseum in Rome?
* Rouen where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake?
* Notre Dame where there is a statue of someone beheaded?
* etc.
When you think about it, there are a lot of gruesome things that have happened in European history. Maybe this was the wrong vacation idea with kids but with my oldest only having 2 more summers with us after this, we wanted to do this trip while we could as a family.
I completely expect Dachau to be a sobering experience and to leave there feeling sick to my stomach. These concerns have made me read a lot of reviews, etc. from people who have taken their children there. There are so many mixed opinions but I still have time to weigh my options. I really appreciate everyone's opinions and am especially interested in hearing from people who have taken a younger child and whether or not they prepared them beforehand.
I don't usually post to the forum. But for this topic I think I will. I was 9 the 1st time I went to Dachau. My parents took my brother and I to Europe for a month, and this was one of the stops high on their list. For this trip, my dad stayed outside of the museum w/my brother, I and our 3 cousins (all of which were younger than I) while my mom, and aunt went to the museum to see the exhibits. Then they switched places w/my dad and he went in.
What I remember most was how solemn the grounds were, and the starkness of the buildings. After dad came out of the museum we walked the rest of the grounds. And all 5 of us kids were very quiet the entire time, I think we all knew this was a place not to be loud and noisy in.
The 2nd time I was 18 and my youngest cousin was 9. We all went thru the museum together and then took the guided tour of the grounds. I definitely remember the 2nd trip more than the 1st, but that may be cause 18 is a lot closer than 9 is now:)
This is just my 2 cents. I do remember my parents and aunt and uncle had a long talk about whether us kids would go in or not. That 1st time, but there was no discussion the 2nd time it was just a given we were going.
Thanks
Kendra
About the children... I think your trip sounds great and you should take them everywhere you have listed. My son's interest in history began with pirate books at a young age, moved to the Civil War and now he is the biggest expert on WWII history that I know. History is such a good thing to teach kids. He SO enriches our Europe trips with what he adds and explains pertaining to the history of each town/country.
MY POINT is one I think everyone else has missed (unless I skimmed too fast). At age 9, and possibly 12 also, they do not even remotely have the life experiences that we adults do to enable them to feel the horrors that adults feel at these places. We have lived, seen and heard of so many atrocities that have formed our feelings, and they do not have that yet. Our family of 4 has been to Dachau, Mauthausen & we're visiting Auschwitz in July. We didn't have young kids, but I know the feelings we felt & will feel. Depressing & shocking are words that don't do it justice. I do not believe it will be the same for your kids - they will skim the reading, see some disturbing photos, walk through the buildings, and come away far less bruised than other posters are saying. Of course they will learn what awful things happened, but in a far more shallow way than adults will. You will have the ability, as their parents who know them best, to explain anything that bothers them.
Go for it! You are opening their eyes in a way that protection does not do. I read a quote somewhere: "Life is a book, and those who don't travel read only one page." You are amazing for planning this trip, and you are creating family memories and topics of conversation that will never be forgotten - in a good way. Most Americans IMO are very shallow when it comes to world events & news, and world travel will CHANGE your children. I have seen that from both my kids' study abroad sessions and those of their friends as well as our trips to Europe.
PS - the catacombs are not scary--your boys will probably think it's cool!, and none of the other places you mention (been to all of them but 1), will be traumatic at all!
Seahunt, I haven't responded to this thread, because I haven't been to Dachau with children, but I feel encouraged by your posts. I think you are giving a lot of thought to this. I agree with the last poster, most children just won't absorb what they can't process. They may have lots of questions, which you seem prepared to answer.
When I visited Auschwitz, the guide told us the story of a little boy who had been hidden by the women in the camp. When the Russians liberated the camp, a soldier asked the boy his name. The boy held out his arm with a number tattooed on it. He was younger than nine.
seahunt,
I also haven't responded to this Thread as I haven't been to Dachau with children. I'm a parent and not sure how I would have approached this situation with my three boys as I never had the opportunity. You know your children better than any of us here, so if you think they can handle the subject matter, it might be an interesting visit for them. I've seen many German high school students at the camps and other WW-II sites, as it's apparently part of their curriculum.
A few thoughts.....
German high school groups have been visiting a concentration camp as part the school program for a long time, at least in western Germany. My first trip in Germany in 1971 at the Munich HI hostel where I was staying were also two school groups, one group from a Gymnasium in a town in the Ruhr area, I met several of these kids, 17 year olds. One day their agenda was the visit to Dachau. At least for pupils at a Gymnasium, the university bound kids, visiting a camp was included in the school program.
Thanks, everyone. I think a few of you hit the same nail on the head that I was thinking. While I know we adults will be horrified by the whole thing, they will not be able to process it. I had already mentioned that I was not planning on taking my 9 year-old in to see the film and I will give the 12 year-old the option to stay out of it with us if he wants.
As far as my original point of this post goes, I think we will opt to do the guided tour. That way we can also talk with the guide beforehand and if there are certain thing that may bee too graphic, he/she can make us aware that maybe the kids should miss a certain part of the tour.
I really value everyone's opinions and it made me take do a lot further research. I will certainly report back and let everyone know what happens. Thank you for all of your valued tips!
