Witnesses of the Second World War Erasmus Project

Project Title

Witnesses of the Second World War

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

“Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed“ (Preamble to the UNESCO Constitution). We strive to embody this preamble through this project and in the light of the current influx of war refugees from countries like Syria into European countries, we strongly believe that young minds are constantly challenged into upholding the meaning of peace and eventually, defending the concept of peace regardless of their origin. History is almost always integrated into the core curriculum of the education system in Europe but we envisage that this project will provide students with a hands-on approach to learning and discovering the many stories which may soon be unheard. First-hand accounts of eyewitnesses of WW2 have more impact than just words written in text books and this is essentially the basis of this project – keeping stories alive by engaging the young generation.

With this goal in mind, we started the project in September 2016 with three partners: Poland, Finland and Greece. Italy was one of our partners but their application was unfortunately turned down. Due to this unexpected change, we had to reshuffle and analyse the number of LTTAs and TPMs and other roles and activities that would be feasible with 4 partners, instead of 5. Nevertheless, the expertise as well as enthusiasm from each remaining partner country did not deter the project and we believe that we have managed to achieve the main objectives of the project. A detailed description of each activity pursued by all partners of this project can be seen in annex 1.

During this project, we managed to seek assistance and where possible, partnership from organisations related to the theme and subject of this project. An expert in Oral History (Dr Susan Hogervorst), the senior education employee attached to the National Comité 4 en 5 mei (Ms Sarah Feirabend), the foundation of oktober 44 in Putten (Stichting oktober 44), the Landelijk Steunpunt Gastsprekers WOII – heden, the city council of Harderwijk, the city library and ASEF Classroom Network were some of the organisations that we approached in various forms, mainly through workshops and presentations either during the transnational project meetings or a study day or conference.

The main activity that each partner school did was interviews with witnesses of World War 2. All interviews have been subtitled and uploaded to YouTube, in which the links have been shared onto the project website (http://www.ohie.eu). These interviews were carried out by students and each story or interview is related to an event that was significant to the interviewee of that particular country. Throughout the interviews, we also developed oral history guidelines, factsheets, Joomag online magazines, lesson plans and materials for teachers who would like to use the interviews on the website during his/her lesson. The products have been uploaded to the Erasmus+ project results platform. Throughout the project, we organised transnational project meetings with teachers and student exchanges with students. During each TPM, we incorporated two elements: checks on the progress by each partner and setting deadlines of each target, as well as cultural excursions that are related to WWII, whereas each student exchange was focused on the history and local history of that particular partner country (cultural excursions), the intercultural activities (students participated in several activities planned by students and teachers of the host country) and workshop/seminars/presentations/interview with a witness/expert of Oral History.

We believe that we have achieved the results that we aimed for. Our main product is the online database but most importantly, the stories of the witnesses who were interviewed are now accessible for everyone. They are no longer stories that can only be passed on to the next generations of their own families, but also to everyone across the world. Moreover, the stories from each witness puts the WWII into context: students have a better understanding of what happened during WWII from the perspective of someone who has witnessed it first hand. The stories are more vivid and relatable to the students as most of the witnesses were either as old as or about as old as our students during WWII. Furthermore, the stories ‘make more sense’ to students as they are not ‘second hand’ stories that you get from another source; they are ‘real’ stories from ‘real’ people. We can honestly say that the impact on our students is a lot greater than we had anticipated. A newspaper article about our students’ experience precisely illustrates this impact (see annex 2).

In the future, we would like to use the database as a central point for all WWII and other stories for our school network. In 2020, we also wish to propose an ASEF Classroom Network project which utilises the database that we already have. This will be useful for both teachers and students.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 106685 Eur

Project Coordinator

Vereniging voor Christelijk Voortgezet Onderwijs te Harderwijk en omstreken & Country: NL

Project Partners

• Tampereen kaupunki, Sammon keskuslukio
• PROTOLYKEIO ELASSONAS
• Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Mikolaja Kopernika