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At what age should one start teaching chidren about the Holocaust?
Spinoff of http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/traumatizing-children-with-horrific-tales
I grew up knowing that there was a holocaust, and that my great-grandparents lost their family members then. As I grew up, I was told more about what actually happened and the details, how my great-grandfather walked into the house to find everyone shot dead and the other stories. I can’t say I never had nightmares about it, but I’m still happy I grew up knowing about it and not surprise finding out when I was older. I didn’t hear the actual stories until I was about ten years old.
depends on the Kid, use your best Judgement for your own kids. Some might be ok at 10 others not until they are teenagers
You can talk about it in the general sense from very young without getting into details, just like we tell them about Mitzrayim and the Churban. As they grow they can hear or read more about it.
We are never really “ready” for the holocaust, so it will never be comfortable and it never was.
Torah613Torah: Funny how i was thinking the same thing as i read through that thread before i opened this thread! My opinion would be the same as how children are taught stories in the torah: When they are young they are taught basics and as they get older they learn more details. Just recently I was reading something to my children that referenced the holocaust in a very miniscule way. My 5 and 7 year old, both deep thinkers who absorb everything, asked me about it and i told them that the goyim hate the yidden so much, and there was one place called Germany that started a big war on the yidden and they killed alot of yidden. I also explained to them about goyim who protected some yidden, and that nowadays there are lots of goyim who are friendly.
Not getting into details is one thing, but we shouldn’t distort the picture either.
I believe in putting off telling them as long as possible. I doubt they’d be traumatized after they found out because we didn’t tell them earlier. Some of my children are named after great-grandparents who were Shoah victims, and I don’t know how they’re going to react to that. I like miritchka’s idea, though, of giving them the general idea, without mentioning the horrible specifics about the kinds of things that happened and the overall scale of it.
I learned about it from about the age of 7. I became religious after learning all about it, finally at the age of 17.
I meant that I like miritchka’s idea of telling them the general idea, but only if it becomes necessary to tell them for some reason (like they heard about it from somebody). I just don’t see a reason to tell them very early if it’s not necessary.
yytz: thank you! Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I would’ve told my children in any case sooner rather than later. It just so happened that it came up recently
I grew up with it, I have known about it ever since I could remeber. My grandparents are survivors so that porbably made a difference. I can’t say I didn’t have nightmares, but then again who wouldn’t, it’s very scary. I would have nightmares no matter what age.
My father O”H once came to my daughter’s kindergarten class, as part of a generational program. He was there to speak about Torah Klafim that he rescued during the Holocaust. Neither of my parents was a survivor, my dad came here when he was about 12 and my mom was born here. So his perspective was of a soldier fighting the Nazis.
So how does one explain the Holocaust to 4 and five year old children? He started off by asking them if they knew who Pharaoh was. He asked them to tell him about what kinds of “mean things” Pharaoh did to Bnei Yisroel, and several children offered their version of “slavery” to him. Then he asked them if they knew who Haman and Antiochus were, and of course they all raised their hands, and so forth.
THEN, he said that not so very long ago a man named Hitler was just like Pharaoh, Haman, and Antiochus, and he tried to be very mean to the Yidden. He didn’t like that they learned the Torah, he didn’t like that they did mitzvos. He made them live in tiny houses and didn’t let the children go out to play. He didn’t let them have enough food to eat. THIS was something the kids could understand and relate to without encumbering them with nightmarish thoughts.
He brought out the Klafim (which are encased in Lucite, and showed them how the bad men drew pictures all over the holy Sefer Torah, and then cut it up into smaller pieces. This too, they understood as being very, very wrong. He finished off by telling them that Hashem helped the Yidden and the soldiers to stop the bad people, just like the Chashmonaim. They got a little bit of modern Jewish history, appropriate to their age and understanding, without frightening them.
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