Wayne and Coleen Rooney took their two youngest sons to Auschwitz after their son Kit asked to visit while learning about the Second World War at school.
The family’s trip to Poland features in the forthcoming Disney+ reality series The Real Rooneys, with a scene showing the Manchester United record goalscorer and his family stopping to look at the cattle cars the Nazis used to transport people to their deaths.
Speaking about the series to the Guardian, the former England captain said: “It’s really important to learn about history, good and bad. Sometimes with your kids, you only want to tell them good stuff, and I don’t think that’s good for them.”
The visit was prompted by Kit, now ten, rather than the production company.
It was the footballer’s second visit to the Nazi death camp. He first went in 2012, when Poland and Ukraine hosted the Euros, after being among a handful of England players who told the FA they wanted to visit the site.
He was then joined by teammates Andy Carroll, Phil Jagielka, Jack Butland, Joe Hart, Theo Walcott and Leighton Baines.
Wayne said the visit “put a lot of things into perspective to see what had gone on there.”
At Birkenau, the record-breaking goal scorer paced out the path to death taken by the victims of the Holocaust.
He told the JC at the time: “There was the guy who made all the decisions, whether they lived or died. He’s probably gone home after that, listened to music, and had dinner with his family as if nothing had happened. It’s crazy. It’s hard to understand.
“I’m a parent and it’s tough to see what happened there. You’ve seen the amount of children who died. You see the children’s clothes and shoes, it’s really sad. You have to see it first-hand.”
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