Understanding Europe – Comprehending and recognising the importance of memorial sites and commemorative places as didactic symbols of Polish and German history Erasmus Project

Project Title

Understanding Europe – Comprehending and recognising the importance of memorial sites and commemorative places as didactic symbols of Polish and German history

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Home and justice affairs (human rights & rule of law); International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

Understanding Europe – Comprehending and recognising the importance of memorial sites and commemorative places as symbols of Polish and German history

The 30 Polish participants (15 male and 15 female) and the 30 German participants (15 male and 15 female) were high school students at the II Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Anny z Sapiehów Jabłonowskiej in Białystok (Poland) and the Aldegrever-Gymnasium in Soest (Germany).
Both groups of students worked together on topics of Polish and German commemorative culture.
The students were 16 to 17 years old and were studying to receive diplomas that will enable them to enlist in universities or other colleges of higher education. Furthermore the students gained knowledge and insight into their future professions.
Polish and German history has manifested itself in various important events, places of commemoration and memorial sites including e.g. the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, The Warsaw uprising, the Solidarity movement and the peaceful revolution in 1989. These events create the background for intensive discussion about common European ideals and values of the past, present and future. They show the interdependency of developments regarding e.g. the Solidarity movement and the peaceful revolution in East Germany in 1989.
Places of commemoration such as ghetto walls, Pawiak, memorials of different groups killed during the Nazi regime, the former Synagogue in Bialystok and the still existing Synagogues in Trykocin, the Polin museum in Warsaw, the memorial site at Wewelsburg, the French Chapel in Soest and the Auschwitz extermination camp represent these events as symbols of an eventful past and are therefore crucially didactic.
Students participating in the Erasmus+ project had a unique opportunity to explore and work in these places which involve key aspects of their respective professions.
The students gained insight into new professional perspectives or activities in the context of commemorative culture and thus be confronted with possible job plans or university careers.
Hence this Erasmus+ project was closely connected to the program “No exam without continuity”, established by the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
To grasp the magnitude of the key sites of remembrance it was mandatory to personally see and experience these places.
This in turn justified the project-related mobility carried out during the project.
Our approach resulted in an exceptionally authentic experience encouraging our students to experience, analyze and to plan the potential activities we embarked on.
Furthermore, our students put their newly acquired knowledge into practice by reflecting and implementing their professional expertise on different topics related to our project.
Thus, this acquisition of practical knowledge lead to a vast number of products including video and photo documentations, flyers promoting educational trips, a radio interview, job profiles with the compulsory skills needed within this field, exhibitions as well as a multidimensional timeline illustrating crucial historical events displayed on a homepage serving as a multiplier. We implemented an effective press and public relations work into the project and therefore making it multidimensionally sustained.
All participants gained a variety of perspectives on common and shared historical events and development, especially on those historical issues both countries have had in common in the course of the 20th century and the present.
Moreover, our approach encouraged our students to recognize the importance of common values and fundamental rights shared not only by these two countries but also by all members of the European Union.
With our project strengthening European ties and contributing to a deeper understanding between Poland and Germany we aimed at strengthen sustainable European ties between both nations but also at avoiding prejudices by means of greater knowledge and awareness on common history.

In the long run, our primary objective was to develop convictions and courage among our students to defend basic values such as the importance of man’s fundamental rights, the protection of human dignity and respect especially in situations when asserting those rights and values might require courage to stand up for one’s beliefs.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 59500 Eur

Project Coordinator

Aldegrever-Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Zespol Szkol Ogolnoksztalcacych Nr 2 w Bialymstoku