In the name of peace, this autumn my daughter’s class is being taken on the annual tenth-grade school trip to Poland and Germany. It’s an eight-day bus tour of nazi concentration camps, organised by a group called Travel For Peace. It is voluntary, but every child in her year has signed up to take part. It begins with three days in Poland. They see the sights of Krakow and afterwards they’re taken through Auschwitz and Birkenau and visit the infamous railhead. Next, they go down the salt mines at Wieliczka; and then it’s onward to Germany, where they spend the first day at an amusement park called Tropical Islands. That’s followed by a tour of Berlin: Unter den Linden, the Brandenburg Gate, the Ku’damm, Potsdam, and so on, with a detour to a former Staasi prison in the afternoon. Their last day is spent at Sachsenhausen, in Oranienburg, on the outskirts of Berlin, and the women’s camp at Ravensbrück. And then it’s everybody back on the bus for the long ride home to Norway.
Although we’ve agreed to it, I don’t know how I really feel about the trip. Is a sightseeing bus tour for teenagers trivialising the holocaust? No. If this were a group of fifty-year-olds, I’d wonder a bit: why the ironic itinerary? why so many camps? But teenagers need distractions, the irony of making an amusement park visit on the way to KZ Sachsenhausen won’t be lost on them and a full tour will give them a fuller picture of what happened, probably. Even so, my daughter has never been indifferent to suffering and so I’m not sure how the trip will help her. Besides that, being against concentration camps and nazis is not the same as being in favour of peace. I hope the history is taught with subtlety rather than platitudes.
It’s an expensive holiday: nearly a thousand US dollars, plus spending money. That won’t cover all the costs; so we, the parents, have been asked to sell things. During the Christmas holidays we were supposed to sell chocolate biscuits: my daughter was alloted eight tins. They were pretty good, and by the time she went back to school we had eaten the lot. We had to pay for them ourselves, but it was worth it. The fact is that none of us had the nerve to go knocking on doors, trying to sell our neighbours chocolate biscuits — let alone in the name of peace, and let alone to pay for a tour of the death camps. Today I got an email from the organisers asking me to suggest other ways to raise money. Anything, just so I don’t have to go to the local shopping mall on Saturdays begging for spare change. I’m going to propose selling off the school’s parking lot to build housing; that should cover a few years’ worth of trips to Poland. They’ll never do it, and I don’t really blame them.
A Bad Guide 
I understand your reservations about the trip. I had a bad enough effect from reading Shirer at what was probably too early an age; I don’t think a visit to a bunch of camps would have done me much good. But then I come from a tenderer generation that had not been exposed to the toughening stimuli that your daughter’s generation takes for granted.
In the 80s I went to both Auschwitz and Birkenau. Auschwitz had been turned into a museum and for that reason, I think, it seemed like something from a movie.
But Birkenau was something else. I got a driver and went by myself. I told him I’d be there for an hour or so. The place — then — looked like it had just been liberated.It was huge. There were no people, no guides, no information booth — just a map on a stand. There were bunks in the barracks and tables tipped over, as if in a crush to get out. The pond where the ashes had been dumped had a slightly gray tinge to it.
I lasted less than half an hour. When I ran back to the car, the driver said something like, “No one ever lasts long here.” I’m sure it would be different with a group (I was literally the only soul there), and now there is probably some kind of information center, but it is — or was for me — a devastating experience. I’m glad that I went, because I experienced something there that I hadn’t experienced reading about it. But it was very difficult.
So I hope your daughter is well-prepared and that the adults traveling with the kids know what they are doing. It’s a bit weird to have some fun on the trip, too, but they’ll need it. On the other hand, kids are sometimes better at dealing with this than adults.
That’s all a facade, the world-weary teenager. They’re as soft as any other generation. I just can’t imagine what sort of good is available to someone so young from this exposure.
Very interesting, mab. I’ll get them to read this.
1) Sell goats’ milk. Latest sighting: semi-skimmed at Marks Expensive, 1.09 GBP for 750 ml.
2) I had no need to visit concentration camps – my father told me about what he saw at Belsen.
Unfortunately they won’t produce it, so we’re on the buying end. Maybe we can go into goat’s milk futures on the Oslo bors.
I have no need to visit camps, I’m against them and I’m not changing my mind.
My son’s youth symphony sneered at my idea of selling cheap wine on the streets and delivering to people’s homes on bicycles.
I suspect there may be a market for those charming scarves knitted from the goat wool and modeled by your goats, especially among Hattians. Have you ever been to a Dr.Who convention? Everyone shows up dressed as Tom Baker and wearing exactly that extra long scarf that was knitted for him by I think Madam Nostradamus. If you want to drum up even more business, I think you will have to have a LanguageHat meetup. I feel sure everyone would want to show up in one of those scarves.
The usual trip for American students is New York and Washington, usually done in the senior year. We had some sort of paper we had to write for it as preparation, and we got to meet some politicians and see a Broadway play.
The only person I have ever met who visited a concentration camp I met in Venice. He was quite morose about it, enough to mention it to a complete stranger, but he couldn’t describe it much beyond that. I hadn’t thought before of visiting such a place, but I was trying to put some distance in my marriage at the time and on the basis of his reaction didn’t think it was quite what I needed. I was running out of money anyhow. There probably isn’t a right time to go, but if I had to choose, it would be as a resilient teenager when spooky things like Edgar Allen Poe and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the Night Stalker for my generation) are still interesting and you still think it’s a good idea to paint your bedroom walls black.
Thank you, John. That is a great idea. It’s probably illegal, which will make them reluctant to try it, but the Polish tour would make a good cover for me to test this certain money spinner myself.
I like the way this thread is going. You’re all thinking up ways for me to make money.
Teenagers’ resilience isn’t to be counted on, though.
I fully agree with you that it seems a lot to take in. I remember feeling very strange just visiting Plötzensee (is that on their programme as well?) , so I certainly couldn’t cope with a camp. On a lighter note, I would definitely want to buy one of your scarves.
Welcome bruessel — which I think would be bridgedonkey in Norwegian — it’s good of you to drop by. Nobody’s mentioned Plötzensee being on their programme as far as I know, but it might be part of their Berlin tour. I hope not, enough is enough.
We’ll have to look into the scarf thing.
No one’s resilience is to be counted on. At some time or other, no matter how much people may try to protect us, we all have to find out that bad things can happen. Would you rather never find out? I have never been one to hide under the bed and let life pass me by, and if I have to find out on my own and secretly, then I will do it that way, but then there is no one to share it with and gain insight.
If you are not taking risks, you are not alive.
That’s right as far as it goes, but not all risks are equal. Like good cheese, children develop over time. A child may not be ready emotionally for everything you and I think we can withstand without damage. The parent try and prevent their child being exposed to something that will damage them; how far they go is a question of judgment.
[…] A. J. P. Crown created an interesting post today on The Polish TourHere’s a short outlineIt’s an expensive holiday: nearly a thousand US dollars, plus spending money. That won’t cover all the costs; so we, the parents, have been asked to sell things. During the Christmas holidays we were supposed to sell chocolate biscuits: … […]