Learning from history — experience of totalitarian regimes of the 20th century

After the unification of Germany, the Wilhelm Hammann School in Thuringia was directed to change its name. Students and teachers conducted a research project and discovered that Hammann, a political prisoner in Buchenwald, saved the lives of 904 children there. As a result of the study, the school decided to keep its name. Students are continuing the research by trying to find people whom Hammann rescued. Project derived from partner website “Lernen aus der Geschichte”.

 Students from Rothenburg ob der Tauber made a film about Brettheim in the last days of the war. In it, survivors recall SS atrocities and the arrival of U.S. troops. With the help of Russian and American students, the young Germans made Russian and English versions of the film. Along with an exhibition, the film has been seen throughout Europe, the U.S. and Canada, inspiring students to record their own local histories. Project derived from partner website “Lernen aus der Geschichte”.

Students began by surveying classmates about their knowledge of the Malchow concentration camp, a sub-camp of Ravensbrück. In order to keep the camp’s memory alive in the town, the students conducted an archaeological dig and compiled information resulting from their studies. In 1997, the project won second prize in the first statewide contest about memorial work in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Project derived from partner website “Lernen aus der Geschichte”.

The Bernburg memorial offers materials to teachers to help them prepare their students for a first visit to the site. More than 14,000 patients and prisoners were killed in Bernburg between 1940 and 1943 during the euthanasia program. The students read historical documents about “racial hygiene,” involuntary sterilization and euthanasia. They also analyze how a majority forms its opinions about socially marginal groups. Project derived from partner website “Lernen aus der Geschichte”.

Together with professional actors from the Municipal Theater of Chemnitz, enthusiastic students from the Dr.-Wilhelm-André-Gymnasium rehearsed the play “Dr. Korczak – The Last Journey” by the Japanese author, Fumikatsu Inoue. Korczak, a physician and teacher, was director of an orphanage and died along with 200 of his orphans at Treblinka in 1942. The performance has been a great success in Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Project derived from partner website “Lernen aus der Geschichte”.