Both Germany and Russia experienced horrible genocides in the XX century – the Holocaust and the Great Terror. Millions of people became victims of totalitarian regimes in two countries, however since the USSR had won the Great Patriotic War, this served as an excuse to mass repressions while defeated Germany had to find its way to rehabilitate. As the results we can see memorials full of school pupils in Germany who are taught about their past in order to prevent the violence in future, and meanwhile in Russia the only GULAG site museum “Perm-36” was closed in 2014. Young generations in Russia have hardly ever heard about the Great Terror, which can bring to collective loss of memory of those events.
But why is it important – to remember? Why should we learn about painful experience of our grandfathers and grandmothers? To answer these questions students from Yugra State University, Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia and European Studies Berlin, Germany have initiated the Project “Memory as tool of change: Russian-German exchange”. Its aim is to bring a group of Russian students to Germany to study how history of the Holocaust is represented and taught at universities, museums and memorials.
The trip will be conducted on 1-11, March 2016. The interested can join the group. Application form and requirements are available in the tab “To Take Part”. The deadline for applications is 20, December 2015. The program is free of charge, but participants have to cover their own expenditures.
The project activities will include lectures at universities provided by the Holocaust researchers; visits to museums and memorials including Buchenwald and Memorial Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg where participants will be taught how to manage group work and teach at the memorials and how to make history alive. Also city-tours with respect to the Holocaust history will be provided in Berlin and Leipzig.
Project "Memory as a tool of change: Russian-German exchange" 