Age limit for bringing children on tour of Auschwitz or Scavi

I cannot imagine taking a child under age 14 into a concentration camp. How in the world do you explain something like this to a younger child anyway? This is a very scary point in world history, and even if you think your child is "mature", this is something better left until they are older.

You can look up on this site under advanced search and type in something like "visiting Auschwitz with children" and you will find information that gives you reasons that taking children here is not recommended. It doesn't say forbidden. How old are the children you are talking about? My older son would have been maybe alright if he was visiting under 14 but my younger one would never have made it as he is much more sensitive. He had a hard time at 17 visiting Dachau and at 20 visiting the memorial in DC. I seem to remember not too many months ago that someone on "To the East" was planning on taking children under 14 as they had read several books about WWII and seen several movies like Schindler's List. Not sure how you can look that up though to see how they made out. Am not answering your question but maybe the advanced search might help. Just advise that you do a lot or preparation beforehand, if that is even possible, and be prepared for afterward.

I agree with Gail; I think it has a lot to do with the individual child. I think a lot of it may have to do with how much a child knows about that portion of history. Have they learned about it in school? Have they perhaps seen movies or documentaries? Has it been discussed at home? I think these are all questions a parent must consider. Especially as the grandson & nephew of Holocaust survivors (who went on to live long lives in the U.S.), I feel strongly that for teens who are mature enough, a visit to a camp is an extremely important, educational, and memorable experience. Re: your specific question; I, too, seem to recall that Auchwitz (and Dachau for that matter) has a RECOMMENDATION of not bringing kids under 14. But I beleve these are guidelines to assist in planning for a camp visit, and not a firm rule.

Children under 10 are not permitted to enter the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. As you can imagine, a great deal of thought and research went into that decision.

Same for the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC...they recommend 11 and up but I'm not sure it's restricted by rule. I personally believe some younger kids (not all) are mature enough to visit a camp, but it really just depends on the kid, the family, etc.

Kent, I knew I had seen something recently on taking children to see Auschwitz and I finally found it. On this site, look under "General Europe" and you will see a posting "Europe with kids" and read the posts. I think it was Randy who posted that they had taken children, one of them about 7, to Auschwitz. Maybe you can send Randy a PM and see how they did this, how children dealt with the experience, etc.

I was there last month and saw people walking around with strollers and baby carriers. Most of the kids were asleep. It was really weird, especially when you go in rooms all about how children were systematically murdered. I didn't see many kids between toddler-age or under 18. There are steps in many of the buildings, so it's hard to tote young kids around anyway. I must add, I think a lot of those with kids were Germans or Russians or from other nearby places. I wouldn't bring kids under 4th grade, personally, but above that is probably fine. It depends on maturity level.

The OP was intended to be a clarification of a question that comes up here on a regular basis, but not regularly enough to be well researched. Now we have more info on this, thanks to those who have posted to this topic.

Since my name came up, I'll respond; Yes, we were all at Auschwitz & Birkenau in July, 2010 when the children were then age 14, 11 and 7. Ideally, the 7yo would have been able to do a different activity since, I would agree, that is too young to fully grasp what was going on there. But we were traveling as a family, so we all stay together. On a number of occasions before hand, we talked about the issues central to Germany and WWII (we were visiting a number of related sites from Amsterdam to Poland, though the trip was not designed to focus on that, just taking advantage of the history that was there) so the children were aware of the basics before we left home. Then, by the time we made it to Poland, we had already been to several sites that augmented the information we arrived with. We are not only parents of three, but also teachers with a combined 35 years of experience with children as students grades 2-12. Generally speaking, children are very capable of dealing with difficult issues like this as long as they understand what happened and why. It is when they are left with only partial information that the issues don't make sense and they are left confused. Sometimes children are more open to absorbing and processing situations like this than adults are. I would certainly agree that if the children are not mature enough to behave seriously at a site like this, they shouldn't be there. If they are zoning out listening to an iPod or whining about being bored or chasing each-other from room to room, they don't belong there. They need to be able to respect the seriousness of the situation. There is no magic age for when this can happen. Children are different. Parents are different. The important thing is that the information gets out to each new generation so that we, as a people, never forget.

...as an aside; When we were in Paris in 2009 our youngest was only 6 years old. After visiting Notre Dame, we walked around behind the cathedral to the small, somewhat obscure Jewish Deportation Memorial, underground and accessed by a small stairway. The memorial was free, but the entry to the stairs was "guarded" by a very serious looking man in uniform. As we attempted to enter, he stopped us and pointed to our youngest and asked his age. Unknown to us, he was too young to enter. I assume they simply wanted to ensure the solemnity of the experience was preserved for adult visitors. I can respect that. So we quickly decided to split up so that one of us could stay above with him while the others entered. When we explained the situation to him, as I feared, he started to tear up - not the "I'm a spoiled kid who is going to have a tantrum to get what I want" kind of cry, but the hurt feelings of being excluded from something he wanted to see. The guard, seeing this unfold, tapped my wife on the shoulder and motioned for us all - our yongest included - to go ahead. We walked through and saw the site and he was perfectly quiet and respectful. When we exited, he walked over to the guard (on his own) and thanked him for letting him go. He's not a perfect kid, but I was especially proud of him that day.

Thoughtful post from Randy, about this question requiring judgment by parents!

We took our kids (8&12) to Maunthausen concentration camp. We explained it ahead of time. We took them into the barracks and around the outside. We did not take them into the museum, we took turns, same with showers. It was a good compromise so they could learn at their age levels while we were able to experience it at an adult level.

My son visited Auschwitz when he was 10. He and I wandered around outside while my husband explored inside the barracks. While he wasn't scarred by what he saw (we stopped on a car trip between Prague and Krakow), not until later did he realize WHAT exactly a concentration camp was when he studied WWII in school. He's 12 now and think he's plenty old enough to visit any historical site he wants - as we'll be near Dachau soon I asked him if he had any interest and he said "no".