Tough call. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be happy about showing those pictures to children. However, two things come to mind:
1. The matter of 1.3 million people (little people... people) killed every year in our nation is such a massive atrocity that it overwhelms the upset such a picture would ordinarily cause a younster, to see it. It’s like the difference between being upset by storm sirens going off next to your home in the middle of the night and being killed by a tornado.
2. I remember being quite a young boy (maybe just around four, five, or six) and seeing the horrific pictures — moving pictures — of victims of the Nazis. I was pretty shocked, but never beyond reason and I am so very grateful that those images were broadcast; also grateful that I got to learn such a lesson about human nature as a young boy. (Such things as the flying gargoyle monkees in the Wizard of Oz were more frightening, the real horror allowed me to be troubled with pathos.)
It was a tough call. And yes - the photos are nothing compared to the actual killing that is going on. However, I’d rather pick and choose my own times to talk to my kids about stuff like that.