Start & End Date: 01.10.2017 – 31.07.2018
Participating Countries: Germany and Belarus
Project Partners: Belarusian Oral History Archive (Belarus)
Number of Participants: 30 participants
Grant Giver: International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
Funding Programme IHRA Grant Programme
Grant Amount: 10175.00 EUR / 30,000.00 EUR
This project aimed at intensification of the discussion about introduction the knowledge about the Holocaust into the educational process, since the notion of Holocaust is not used in textbooks in Belarus. There was an oral history research expedition for collection the information about the Minsk Ghetto from its witnesses, we invited a group of specialists in didactics from Belarus and Germany, which used living witness testimonies collected during the expedition to create modern educational materials for special lessons dedicated to history subject in schools. The educational materials will be introduced at schools and there will be a discussion with curriculum developers on the importance and need to speak at schools about a Holocaust within the main school program.
To reach the aims of the project, we created three distinct phases:
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[ap_tab title=”Interviews with witnesses from the Minsk Ghetto”]Interviews with live witnesses about the life inside the Minsk Ghetto, from January to February 2018.
Over the course of the project, our partners from the Belarusian Oral History Archive and the Geschichtswerkstatt Leonid Lewin conducted interviews with eye-witnesses of the events that happened in and around the Minsk Ghetto.
Number of participants: 10
Profile of participants: University-level students of history and education conducted said interviews.
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[ap_tab title=”Interviews with witnesses from the Minsk Ghetto”]Interviews with live witnesses about the life inside the Minsk Ghetto, from January to February 2018.
Based on the information collected during the interviews, our partners developed educational and didactic materials about Belarus during World War II and the Minsk Ghetto to be used in schools by teachers.
Profile of participants: The materials are to be used by high school history teachers when teaching young people 14 to 18 years old.
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[ap_tab title=”Presentation of the materials”]Presentation of the materials on the 16th of May 2018, in Erfurt.
The final event of the project was the presentation of these materials in the framework of our local event “How do we remember? Remembrance in Belarus and Germany” that was implemented by CGE on May 16th. During this event, that took place at the Topf & Sons remembrance site in Erfurt, experts from the remembrance site and our Belarusian partners discussed the differences and commonalities between the remembrance cultures, -approaches and -methods in the two countries.
Number of participants: 15
Profile of participants: University students and educators in the field of history and remembrance.[/ap_tab]
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Impact
The main goals of these project were to collect the testimonies of the Minsk Ghetto witnesses; to provide open access for the public to the collection of the testimonies through the online archives; to create a unique educational product which will assist the educators in lessons on the history of the Holocaust, focusing also on the educational role of the Holocaust remembrance, on understanding the importance of discrimination prevention and human rights protection nowadays; to start the discussion of introduction of the Holocaust theme in the school curricula and to proliferate the Holocaust Memorial Day in Belarus – 19 July.
Methodology
The main working method was non-formal education in connection with a lot of community activities and group building. The main activities will be debates, group activities, games and workshops.
Gallery
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