Lag - Magazine

LaG - Magazine

Learning with Documents. Historical Education at the Arolsen Archives Index

Index

Learning with Documents. Historical Education at the Arolsen Archives...... 3 The Arolsen Archives. A Historical Overview...... 5 Tracing: Responding to Inquiries about Victims of Nazi Persecution at the Arolsen Archives...... 9 Research Project on Effects for Relatives and the #StolenMemory Campaign as an Educational Project...... 11 Life after Survival. The History of Displaced Persons as a Subject for Education in Schools and Other Educational Contexts...... 16 Learning with Biographies...... 20 Working with Historical Documents from the Arolsen Archives in an Educational Context...... 25 Workshops and Training Courses Based on Archival Documents and Aimed at Educators in Schools and Other Contexts...... 28 The e-Guide to the Arolsen Archives: a Versatile Online Tool that Can also Be Used in Historical Education...... 31 Supporting Trips to Memorial Sites on the Basis of Documents from the Arolsen Archives: the documentED Project...... 33 The Use of Person-Related Documents from the Arolsen Archives in the Work of the Max Mannheimer Study Center Dachau...... 37 The Arolsen Archives – a Very Special Learning Environment...... 40 "Who is 'We'?" On the Critical Analysis of Social Heterogeneity and the Notion of Homogeneity in the Past and Present...... 44 The Arolsen Archives and the Holocaust Survivors’ Friendship Association – Learning from History in Partnership and Friendship...... 47 Use of Archival Materials from the Arolsen Archives in my Work as a Specialist at the Academic Center for Oral History of the Voronezh Institute of High Technologies...... 52 The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Collections of the Arolsen Archives...... 54 International Library Platform for Education About the Holocaust...... 56 Services Offered by the Arolsen Archives...... 59

Magazine from 29/01/2020 2 Introduction

Learning with Documents. The International Tracing Service came into Historical Education at the being in 1948. It was an institution in a cons- Arolsen Archives tant state of flux.Isabel Panek and Henning Borggräfe give a historical account of its Dear Readers, development and describe the tasks fulfilled Welcome to the latest edition of the LaG ma- by the Arolsen Archives today. gazine. This issue has been prepared in part- Tracing, i.e. the search for survivors of Nazi nership with the Arolsen Archives - Interna- persecution and the provision of informati- tional Center on Nazi Persecution. As well on to relatives of former victims, still consti- as presenting their educational offerings, it tutes one of the core tasks of the Arolsen Ar- also provides an overview of the historical chives today. The article authored by Anna development of this internationally oriented Meier-Osiński gives an insight into this ser- institution known as the International Tra- vice. cing Service (ITS) up until May 2019. This magazine is an extended and revised versi- In another article, Anna Meier-Osiński to- on of a German language edition from June gether with Kamila Kolakowski presents 2018. the #StolenMemory traveling exhibition, which focuses on personal effects and the At the heart of the Arolsen Archives lies the life stories of their former owners. These archive built up by the ITS. It contains over personal effects are belongings which were 30 million documents, the majority of which taken away from prisoners in concentration are digitally accessible in the Digital Archi- camps. ve. More than 14 million of these documents are also available online. The documents are Akim Jah and Elisabeth Schwabauer ex- concerned with people who were persecut- plore the question of „who are Displaced ed by the National Socialists, with the Holo- Persons?“ and consider what potential the caust, with forced labor and with Displaced stories of their lives after National Socialist Persons. persecution have for learning in schools and other contexts. The archive was not accessible to the public until 2007. The decision to open up the Ingolf Seidel discusses the fundamental documentary holdings to the public marked opportunities and challenges encountered the beginning of a new phase in the work when working with the biographies of the of the ITS, as it was then known. Since that victims of Nazi persecution in an educatio- time, a wide range of educational materials nal context. He pays special attention to the have been developed and this edition of the use of biographical fragments such as those magazine will provide you with information preserved in the Arolsen Archives. on the latest offerings. Akim Jah highlights the importance of historical documents for learning about his-

Magazine from 29/01/2020 3 Introduction tory. He uses the three stages of historical Lilian Black concentrates on the coopera- inquiry – comprehension, source criticism tion between the Arolsen Archives and the and source interpretation – to throw light Holocaust Survivors’ Friendship Association on the use of sources in an educational con- in Great Britain. The author writes from the text. In another article, Akim Jah describes perspective of the daughter of a Holocaust the archival education workshops offered by survivor who has researched the history of the Arolsen Archives, outlines the methods her father’s persecution. used, and the topics covered. Another institution which uses the archival Christiane Weber presents the e-Guide, holdings kept in Bad Arolsen for its work is a tool which enables students in the class the Russian Research and Educational Cen- room or lecture hall to better understand the ter for Oral History of the Voronezh Institu- documents of the Arolsen Archives. te of High Technologies. Olga Kulinchenko A new enterprise of the Arolsen Archives describes her impressions and experiences is the documentED project. Teachers and as a participant in the biennial joint Win- other educators can use the resources it ter School held by the ITS/Arolsen Archives offers to prepare and follow up a visit to a and the Nazi Forced Labor Documentation memorial site. Christian Höschler explains Center in Berlin-Schöneweide. how this works in practice and what support The United States Holocaust Memorial Mu- the Arolsen Archives provide. seum (USHMM) in Washington is an im- A pilot project for documentED was carried portant partner of the Arolsen Archives at out in partnership with the Max Mannhei- the international level. Elizabeth Anthony mer Study Center in Dachau. Steffen Jost shows how the institutions structure their and Nina Ritz share their experiences and cooperation and presents publications the describe the added value provided by the USHMM has produced on the basis of docu- project when preparing visits to memorial ments from the Arolsen Archives. sites. Finally, Misko Stanisic presents a profes- Marcus von der Straten focuses on working sional development project for librarians with the archival holdings of the Arolsen and archivists in Serbia, which the Arolsen Archives in connection with research-based Archives have supported by running work- learning and describes his experiences as a shops and giving lectures. teacher in the classroom. We would like to thank the staff of the Arol- Christa Kaletsch and Manuel Glittenberg sen Archives as well as all the other authors describe the project titled “Zusammenleben who have contributed to this issue. neu gestalten” (“Redesigning the way we live The next LaG magazine will be published on together”) to show how sources from the 26 February 2020 and will focus on comics Arolsen Archives can be used to focus atten- and graphic novels. tion on flight and migration in the context of Your LaG Editorial Team education for democratic citizenship.

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The Arolsen Archives. native countries as quickly as possible. Most A Historical Overview DPs were searching for information about the fate of missing friends and relatives at By Henning Borggräfe and Isabel Panek the time, as were millions of other people “I would like to know more about my fa- all over the world. Various agencies took up mily background and my father’s fate” or the search for victims and survivors of Nazi “we are researching the fates of forced la- persecution during this early period and an borers in our region”: these are typical of extensive network of tracing bureaus was the inquiries which reach the Arolsen Ar- established. This network was supported by chives (known as the International Tracing survivors who organized assistance them- Service, ITS, up until May 2019) almost selves after liberation as well as by Jewish every day. Located in the small town of Bad relief organizations and various national Arolsen in North Hesse, Germany, the ins- Red Cross Societies. titution was established as a tracing service In the late summer of 1945, the Allies set up for the victims of Nazi persecution over 70 a Central Tracing Bureau (CTB) under the years ago. It is now an information center direction of the United Nations Relief and and an archive and is home to one of the Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) to world’s largest collections on the history of coordinate the search for missing victims of Nazi crimes and their aftermath. The history persecution and for other missing persons of the institution’s origins and the way it has from the member states of the United Na- evolved over the years are outlined below. tions. This bureau, which was initially loca- Extensive Tracing Activities after ted in Frankfurt-Höchst before it moved to Liberation from National Socialism Arolsen in January 1946, served as a central During their conquest of Germany and of hub for tracing activities up until 1947. It the territories that had been occupied by went about its work by circulating inquiries Germany, the Allies came across approxi- and documents between tracing bureaus in mately ten million so-called Displaced Per- the three Western zones of occupation and sons (DPs). These included people who had a number of national tracing bureaus and by been liberated from concentration camps, building up a Central Name Index (CNI). Holocaust survivors and survivors of the ge- Between 1948 and 1951, tracing activities nocide of the Sinti and Roma, former forced were centralized in Arolsen under the di- laborers, and other people who found them- rection of the International Refugee Orga- selves outside of their native countries at the nization (IRO), which was responsible for end of the war. Tens of thousands of them looking after the remaining DPs, and the zo- were children. The first concern of the Allies nal bureaus were closed down. As of 1 Janu- was to provide the DPs with essential care, ary 1948, the CTB became the International and they were keen to return them to their Tracing Service.

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The Importance of Documents A Central Name Index, consisting of over 50 Written testimony of persecution was essen- million index cards on the fates of over 17 tial, not only for tracing missing persons and million people, is one of the tools which can providing information about their fate, but be used to access the documents. also for documenting atrocities, for criminal The Arolsen Archives – an In- prosecutions, and for possible compensati- ternational Organization in Germany on claims. The same held true for knowledge The ITS was initially planned as a temporary about the National Socialist machinery of facility – just like the IRO, which was res- terror, the various sites of imprisonment, ponsible for managing it. However, it soon and the mass crimes which had been com- became clear that the process of tracing mitted. missing persons would take longer than in- During the last months of the war, survivors’ itially thought. And in 1950 already, the or- initiatives had already begun to save docu- ganization was faced with another new task: ments which had been created by the perpet- to provide documentation of persecution rators. The Allied liberators took possession for compensation claims. So when the IRO of the concentration camp documents which closed down in 1951, the ITS remained in the SS had not succeeded in destroying. On operation and the Allied High Commission the orders of the Allies, authorities, firms, for Germany (HICOG) took over its manage- and insurance companies released millions ment. When the latter ceased operations in of documents on foreign forced laborers 1955, responsibility for the ITS was passed from 1946 on. In the late 1940's, ITS staff on to the International Committee of the searched for traces along the routes of the Red Cross (ICRC) after much controversial death marches as well as combing through debate centering on the thorny issue of who registry offices and orphanages in search of should have control over the archive. Retur- clues as to the whereabouts of foreign child- ning the documents to the perpetrators was ren who had gone missing or been abducted. unthinkable for many. This is why an In- And finally, the ITS collected together milli- ternational Commission was set up in 1955 ons of additional documents on the regist- to define the guidelines for the work of the ration, care and emigration of the DPs and ITS, a task it still fulfils to this day. The ICRC brought them to Arolsen. These documents withdrew from the leadership of the ITS in form the core of the ITS collection, which 2012 and the Commission, which presently continued to grow over the following de- comprises eleven member states, took over cades as a result of the acquisition of other the task. In May 2019, the ITS was given the collections, some of which contained origi- new name "Arolsen Archives – Internatio- nal documents, while others contained co- nal Center on Nazi Persecution" to reflect its pies. Today, the holdings of the Arolsen Ar- changed role. Although the Arolsen Archi- chives comprise over 30 million documents. ves are located in Germany, they were and

Magazine from 29/01/2020 6 Discussion still are under international supervision. and other so-called forgotten victims. After Tracing and the Provision of the Cold War, when the Federal Republic Information in a Constant State of of Germany and German companies were Change persuaded to make compensation payments to victims of Nazi persecution from Cen- As the sheer dimensions of the crimes com- tral and Eastern Europe for the first time, mitted by the Nazis became apparent, tra- the inbox of the ITS exploded. Hundreds of cing agencies soon realized that many of thousands of inquiries reached the ITS each those missing would never be found alive year, leading to enormous backlogs and wai- and that there were often not even any docu- ting periods that sometimes lasted for years ments to testify to their fate. Because of this, – in view of the advanced age of the survi- the ITS also carried out active field searches vors, these were challenges for which no for missing persons in the 1940's and used adequate solution could be found, although various different media such as radio and a new fast-track procedure was introduced newspapers to conduct so-called mass tra- and work began on digitizing the archival cing campaigns. At the same time, a Special holdings. Registry Office was set up in Arolsen in 1948 so that family members could be provided By contrast, most of the inquiries received with certification of the death of a relative. today come from second- and third-genera- Initially, a special organization existed for tion family members who want to reconst- the tens of thousands of underage victims of ruct the fate met by their persecuted relati- Nazi persecution. In 1951, it was integrated ves. The Arolsen Archives provide them with into the ITS as the Child Search Branch. digital copies of the archival documents as well as explanatory information. From the 1950's on, when compensation payments first became available, there was In 2018, 15,720 inquiries concerning 24,520 a marked change in the needs of the majori- victims of Nazi persecution reached the ins- ty of the people who contacted the ITS: they titution from all over the world. About 4.3% were searching for evidence of persecution of inquiries still come directly from survivors for their compensation claims. Up until the or their lawyers, while 67.6% come from fa- end of the 1960's, the ITS received hundreds mily members. 17.5% of the people who sub- of thousands of inquiries of this kind. For mitted inquiries were researchers or educa- the staff, this primarily involved searching tors, and the number of inquiries received the documents in the archive for informati- from this group is rising year by year. About on which they then summarized in standar- 600 visitors conducted their own research dized certificates of imprisonment or resi- in the reading room of the Arolsen Archives. dence. Open, Closed and then Open Again The ITS experienced a second major wave of The fact that researchers and educators can inquiries from the late 1980's onwards in the receive information from the Arolsen Archi- context of new debates on forced laborers ves and can do research in the reading room

Magazine from 29/01/2020 7 Discussion should not be taken for granted, because of the organization have expanded consi- the archive was closed to the public from derably since the archive was reopened to the beginning of the 1980's up until 2007. the public. Professional preservation and On the one hand, the then Director justified restoration work is underway on the origi- the isolation of the institution by pointing nal documents, which were inscribed on to the growing importance of issues connec- UNESCO's Memory of the World register in ted with data protection, while on the other 2013. Improving access to the archive – via hand also highlighting the need for the ITS the internet as well as in the reading room – to focus strictly on its humanitarian man- is at the top of the agenda. And the Arolsen date as it had been defined in 1955. In the Archives now implement and promote pro- 1960's and 1970's, the previous Director had jects in the fields of research and education interpreted the mandate more freely, had by running a range of activities and initiati- sought to network with survivors' associa- ves. tions and memorial sites, and had opened up the archive to researchers. The closure of the ITS archive in the early 1980's weighed all the more heavily because real public debate about Nazi crimes and victim groups About the authors who had been marginalized in the past was Dr. Henning Borggräfe studied History and Politics. He is Head of the Research and Educa- only just beginning. From then on, there tion Department at the Arolsen Archives. was repeated criticism of the isolation of the Historian Isabel Panek is a Research Associate ITS at national and international level. This at the Research and Education Department of the Arolsen Archives. Together with Henning criticism came from academics who were Borggräfe and Christian Höschler, she is also denied access as well as from memorial in- joint curator of the permanent exhibition „A Paper Monument: The History of the Arolsen itiatives and memorial sites associated with Archives.“ the Nazi past. However, the turning point did not come until political pressure built up at the international level, accompanied by media criticism of the behavior of the ITS management and of the long waiting times for inquiries to be answered. In 2007, after a lengthy period of debate, the International Commission decided to reopen the ITS archive to the interested public. While providing information to former persecutees and their families remains a core task of the Arolsen Archives, the activities

Magazine from 29/01/2020 8 Discussion

Tracing: Responding to the death of their parents or other former Inquiries about Victims of Nazi victims of persecution that they were able to Persecution at the find the courage to face this (lifelong) task. Arolsen Archives Or letters and documents belonging to loved ones only came to light after their death, By Anna Meier-Osiński which often makes these documents the very Background first sources of information about the per- The need to reconstruct paths of persecu- secution itself or the first indication that it tion and clarify the fates of close relatives even took place. Deathbed revelations of ad- explains the continuing high numbers of options which had never been spoken about inquiries submitted to the Arolsen Archives or had been kept secret for years frequently (known as the International Tracing Service, prompt those concerned to search for their ITS, up until May 2019) over the past few ye- own identity and roots relatively late on in ars. This is no great surprise, of course, as their lives. The passage of time often has an alongside the 4.3% of inquiries submitted by important role to play here, it is not unusual very elderly survivors, the majority of inqui- for a whole generation to pass before these ries received in 2018 (67.6%) came from se- topics can be tackled, and this is why the cond- and third-generation family members Arolsen Archives are currently experiencing searching for "puzzle pieces" which might a sharp increase in the number of inquiries help them find out about the fate suffered by from the generation of the grandchildren. their parents or grandparents. For some years now, about 20,000 inquiries about specific individuals have been made People have many different reasons for em- to the Arolsen Archives each year from rela- barking on this kind of search and for sub- tives alone, asking the organization to trace mitting an inquiry to the Arolsen Archives. their family members and clarify their fa- Former victims of persecution who survived tes. These inquiries mainly reach the Arol- were often unable to talk about their trau- sen Archives from Poland, Russia, Germa- matic experiences or either could not or ny, the USA, France and Israel. In addition, would not burden their loved ones by telling the Arolsen Archives also receive inquiries them about what had happened to them. about gravesites and nationalities, and since Many did not speak out until much later, 2014, inquiries have been coming in regar- while others no longer had the opportuni- ding the so-called "ghetto pensions" and the ty or the strength to do so. Members of the one-off payments available to former Soviet second generation, who were also often af- prisoners of war since 2015. fected at a conscious or sub-conscious level, were unable to ask the questions they would Service have needed to ask in order to process and As a consequence of the opening up of the clarify the past. Frequently, it was not until archives in 2007, the information relatives

Magazine from 29/01/2020 9 Discussion receive in response to an inquiry includes digital copies of all the documents in the ITS Digital Archive which contain the name of About the author the person who is the subject of that inquiry. Anna Meier-Osiński studied the Cultural His- tory of Eastern and Eastern Central Europe, In order to make it easier to understand the Polish Studies, and Political Science. She is documents, they are made available in chro- Head of the Tracing Department at the Arolsen Archives. nological order and are labeled appropriate- ly, i.e. each one includes information about what type of document it is. Responses to inquiries also include important pointers to archives and other institutions throughout the world that might be able to provide further information on the path of persecution of the specific individual concerned. People who submit inquiries also receive background information on the documentary holdings and further information to help them understand the historical sources. The Arolsen Archives also offer a detailed evaluation of the documents found. Tools which help explain the documents held in the Arolsen Archives so that they can be better understood provide important additional background information. Work on developing other tools is now underway. The online form https://arolsen-archives. org/en/search-explore/inquiries/submit- inquiry/ for submitting inquiries is available in German, English, Polish, Russian and French on the website of the Arolsen Archi- ves. The information sent out in response to inquiries is also provided in the languages listed above.

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Research Project on Effects for owners were unknown, with the result that Relatives and the it was possible to identify the owners of a #StolenMemory Campaign as large proportion of the effects, which could an Educational Project then be attributed correctly. In 2011, in a further attempt to support efforts to return By Anna Meier-Osiński and the effects, a list of the names of the owners Kamila Kolakowski of the approximately 3,200 effects still held Background by the ITS at the time was published online. The personal effects kept in Bad Arol- Personal Effects in the sen are a special collection. In the 1960s, Online Archive the ITS (today’s Arolsen Archives) recei- In the autumn of 2015, the collection of ved around 5,000 personal items, most personal effects became one of the first of them belonging to former political pri- three sub-collections to be made visible and soners who had been deported to concent- searchable in the online archive of the ITS ration camps. The majority of these effects (see today’s online archive of the Arolsen were seized by the British Army during Archives available at: https://collections. the liberation of the Neuengamme con- arolsen-archives.org/en/search/). It is now centration camp and were handed over possible to search the pictures of the entire to the ITS via the Administrative Office effects collection for names and, if available, for Internal Restitution in Stadthagen. dates of birth, as well as to filter the names In addition to personal items from the Neu- by nationality and by place of detention. This engamme concentration camp, the Arolsen functionality is intended to enable volun- Archives also hold a much smaller number teers all over the world to help the Arolsen of personal effects from the Dachau con- Archives search for the rightful owners and to attract the attention of the public to this centration camp and the Hamburg Gestapo, special temporary collection. Publishing from the Amersfort police transit camp and the collection online led to the successful the Compiègne deportation camp. In the return of many effects. This was made pos- years that followed, the ITS endeavored to sible by the support of volunteers, most of return the effects to their rightful owners, whom were from the Netherlands at first. As often with the assistance of the worldwide a result of a Dutch TV news story about the network of Red Cross Societies and memo- online publication, two brothers were finally rial sites. In subsequent years, only a few able to read a farewell letter from their fa- effects could be returned, and no active ther, which was “delivered” to them with a search activities were carried out by the ITS delay of more than 70 years. The story can whatsoever. In 2009, the ITS carried out be accessed at https://arolsen-archives.org/ research on the collection of effects whose

Magazine from 29/01/2020 11 Discussion en/news/sons-receive-their-fathers-fare- sites, especially in Poland and including the well-letter-after-72-years/. Auschwitz and Stutthof memorials, through The Returning Effects Project the assistance of the international prisoners’ associations, and through the initiative of In the autumn of 2016, the ITS launched the individuals in Poland, the Netherlands, Nor- Returning Effects project to help promo- way, France, Belgium, and Spain. te the search all over the world and return effects to the respective families. As part of Personal encounters with relatives frequent- this project, the ITS began to carry out sys- ly take place in Bad Arolsen when effects are tematic research in its own holdings and to returned in person, or in the relatives’ home document and evaluate the paths of perse- countries, and often involve them travel- cution of the approximately 3,200 owners ling long distances from the USA, France, of the effects for the first time; informati- or Poland. These encounters emphasize just on on places of residence and old addres- how important it is to find the next of kin, ses are particularly important here. Most because the objects kept in the Arolsen Ar- of the victims of persecution were political chives are mainly pocket watches, wristwat- prisoners: a large proportion of them (about ches, jewelry, wedding rings, personal docu- 900 people) came from Poland, about 300 ments like birth certificates, school reports, came from the former Soviet Union, about identity papers, correspondence, everyday 680 from Germany, and there were over items, and family photos, all of which are of 50 from the Netherlands, from France, and inestimable value to the relatives. from Spain, as well as from 30 other coun- „Key“ to the Past tries. Effects belonging to Jewish persecu- In many cases, these personal belongings tees are an exception. function like a key that the relatives now The information contained in the docu- hold in their hands, or like a trigger that ments held in the Arolsen Archives (such as helps people start to find out about their transport lists, prisoner registration cards own family history. The effects and docu- etc.) provides important clues as to how to ments provide important information that begin the real-life search for the survivors can fill in the gaps in the life stories of their themselves or their relatives. Within the last relatives or they function like jigsaw pieces three years, more than 390 effects have been in the reconstruction of paths of persecuti- returned to close relatives, including daugh- on which were often unknown or only partly ters, sons, and grandchildren. This was known beforehand. Over 70 years have since only possible through external investiga- passed and this period of time should not be tions and the support of various authorities, underestimated. The same can be said of such as register offices located all over the how important it still is for families to find world, through cooperation with memorial out about the history of their relatives and,

Magazine from 29/01/2020 12 Discussion as is frequently the case, even to find closure know where their loved ones are buried or by clarifying their fates. In many cases, the where a memorial is located. objects concerned are familiar to the child- Seventy years on, families are often now able ren from their childhood. Items like a po- to come to terms with the fates of their rela- cket watch that was taken out of a father’s tives, to visit their resting place, and light a waistcoat pocket on a Sunday and immedi- candle for them. The documents containing ately rekindles childhood memories of a be- information on the site of graves, for ex- loved father when it reappears 70 years after ample, can be found in sub-collection 5.3.2, its owner’s murder. Only relatives have this Attempted Identification. These documents kind of emotional knowledge and personal were created between 1950 and 1951. Howe- memories of the victims of persecution who- ver, this collection also contains many docu- se last personal belongings were taken away ments which had already been created in the from them before their deportation to the latter half of the 1940s. concentration camps. The #StolenMemory campaign The research and the successful returns of In the wake of the very successful research effects which have taken place over the past and return project, the ITS launched the three years have shown that searching and #StolenMemory campaign in 2018. This finding families in Eastern and Central Eu- ready-to-print exhibition tells the stories of rope is not only about returning personal the owners of the effects. The exhibition in- belongings to the families, but is also still cludes large-format posters displaying the inextricably linked to the clarification of fa- names of the concentration camp prisoners tes. In many of the cases which the Arolsen and photos of the objects belonging to them. Archives have researched in Poland, Rus- Focusing on successful searches that have sia, and the Ukraine and which resulted in culminated in the return of personal be- contact being made with the families, often longings, and highlighting what this means with the children of victims of persecution, to the families, it also shows objects whose nothing was known about the whereabouts rightful owners the Arolsen Archives are of the missing relative, let alone about their still searching for, and describes the fates of path of persecution, for over 70 years – un- the people who originally owned them. The til their belongings were returned to their exhibition has already been shown in Paris, families. Moreover, because most of the Innsbruck, Kassel, Athens, Luxembourg and victims of persecution did not survive – the Venice. Exhibitions at various locations in effects belonging to Polish persecutees from Poland took place in 2019 (the 80th anni- the Neuengamme concentration camp in- versary of the beginning of World War II), clude items belonging to a large number of including two exhibitions in Oświęcim with individuals who burned to death on the Cap a thematic and a geographical connection Arcona – most of the families do not even

Magazine from 29/01/2020 13 Discussion to the Auschwitz extermination camp and opportunity to research the fate of a speci- to people from the region who still have not fic person for themselves: they searched the been found. The collection of personal effects online archive of the Arolsen Archives for lends itself particularly well to using the re- documents on Waldemar Rowiński, a 17-ye- gional connections of persecutees from spe- ar-old Polish student who was deported to cific places. Public searches for those con- the Auschwitz concentration camp. He died cerned are then launched. These searches in the bombing of the Cap Arcona passenger can be part of an educational school project, ship. Among other things, the Arolsen Ar- for example. chives still have his school reports and his Nearly 100 pupils from schools in Oświęcim student ID card. They also have documents attended the exhibition opening at the IJBS about his imprisonment and the cause of his International Youth Meeting Center in death. The participants then used this infor- Oświęcim/Auschwitz on 4 September, 2019. mation as the starting point for further re- Cooperation with the International Youth search and were amazed by the many con- Meeting Center is providing an opportuni- nections they found and by the results that ty to use #StolenMemory as an educational emerged in a very short time: “I learned project: the young people involved will at- something about the Polish school system tend a number of seminars where they will along the way” – “Now I know what the Cap be able to work with the biographies and the Arcona shipwreck was all about” – “I know documents, research the fates of people from more about the first transport to the Ausch- their own region, and look for their traces. witz concentration camp now” – these were Perhaps they will even manage to find more just some of the reactions. families. The initial results of the search ef- Outlook forts will be presented in March 2020. In 2020, the #StolenMemory campaign will From 9-10 September 2019, the Arolsen be one of the focal points of the German- Archives took part in the History Forum of Polish projects run by the DPJW, starting the DPJW (the German-Polish Youth Of- with a kick-off seminar at the International fice) in Gdansk. Those invited to attend in- Youth Meeting Center in Oświęcim/Ausch- cluded memorials and educational institu- witz at the end of January 2020. As part of tions from Germany and Poland as well as the “Wege zur Erinnerung” (Paths to Re- teachers and others who work in the field membrance) program, interested teachers of education and organize youth exchanges and educators can apply for a grant to parti- for young people in Germany and Poland. cipate in the project, which will focus prima- The Arolsen Archives ran a number of work- rily on working with biographies and paths shops presenting the potential of the #Sto- of persecution. lenMemory campaign for use in educational contexts. Participants were then given the

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This article is an abridged and revised version of the following text: Ramona Bräu, Kerstin Hoffmann, Anna Meier-Osiński: The New Tasks and Challenges for Tracing. In: Henning Borggräfe/Christian Hös- chler/Isabel Panek (eds.): Tracing and Documenting Nazi Victims Past and Present (Arolsen Research Series # 1). Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2020: https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/534147 (due to be published in June 2020).

About the authors Anna Meier-Osiński studied the Cultural His- tory of Eastern and Eastern Central Europe, Polish Studies, and Political Science. She is Head of the Tracing Department at the Arolsen Archives. Kamila Kolakowski was born in Chojnice/Po- land and studied Translation, Linguistics and Cultural Studies. She works in the Public Rela- tions Department of the Arolsen Archives.

Magazine from 29/01/2020 15 Discussion

Life after Survival. The History ries occupied by Germany, the Allies found of Displaced Persons as a about 10 million people from nearly every Subject for Education in Schools country in Europe who had been displaced and Other Educational Contexts and uprooted. About 7.7 million of them were found in Germany alone. They inclu- By Akim Jah and Elisabeth Schwabauer ded large numbers of children and young Liberation from National Socialism and the people. The DPs comprised many different period which followed immediately after- groups. Many of them had previously been wards hardly have any role to play in his- deported from various European countries torical education at present. However, the to perform forced labor in Germany, where situation of Holocaust survivors, liberated they were obliged to work – often in inhu- concentration camp inmates, and former mane conditions – in factories, small com- forced laborers provides many points of panies, and municipal enterprises as well reference and a wide range of issues which as on farms, in private households, and in can be explored in history lessons and other church communities. educational contexts. These include the state The liberated foreign concentration camp (of health) of the Displaced Persons (DPs) – inmates constituted a second group. Many this is the term used to refer to those people of them had been imprisoned for years in who had been deported primarily to Germa- concentration camps where they were sub- ny and liberated there – as well as their subjected to life-threatening conditions. The sequent movements and the activities of the prisoners who were liberated in the concen- Allies and international aid organizations. tration camps were joined by those liberated The Arolsen Archives (known as the Inter- in the numerous sub-camps and "Außen- national Tracing Service, ITS, up until May kommandos" and by those who had survi- 2019) are closely connected with the history ved the so-called death marches. of the DPs in many different ways. Not least The liberated concentration camp prisoners because the Arolsen Archives have millions also included a large number of Jews who, of documents on the subject, which can be as survivors of the Holocaust, constituted used in a wide variety of ways in connec- a distinct group. They had been deported tion with historical education. This article is from the Reich or from occupied and allied intended to serve as an introduction to the countries and had been brought to ghettos subject and, as such, will provide an over- or the Auschwitz concentration and exter- view of the history of the DPs. mination camp. From there, they had been The Situation after Liberation. moved on again to perform forced labor or Who were the Displaced Persons? had been sent on so-called evacuation trans- During the liberation of Europe, as they ad- ports to camps further to the west. In most vanced through Germany and the territo- cases, they were the only surviving members

Magazine from 29/01/2020 16 Discussion of their families. adolescents. The Allies also organized repat- In addition to these groups, all of whom were riation. However, this was not always easy to victims of National Socialist politics, the DPs implement when it came down to individual also included people who had fled from the cases. Many of the DPs could not or would various Soviet republics and other countries not return to the countries they had come for political reasons and who found them- from. In addition to the antisemitism rife in selves on the territory of the former German their native countries, which was touched Reich after the end of the war. The Jewish upon previously and made it impossible for "infiltrees" who started arriving in Germany Jews to live safely and be treated as equal in 1946, and who will be dealt with in grea- members of society, there were also political ter detail below, were also registered as DPs reasons for this. Many DPs saw no future for by the Allies, as were the German Jews who themselves in East Central Europe, domina- had survived the Holocaust and saw no fu- ted as it was by Stalin, or they feared that ture for themselves in Germany. they would suffer political disadvantages on their return. For forced laborers, libera- The Support Provided by the Allies, ted concentration camp prisoners, and pri- the Repatriation and Emigration of soners of war from the former Soviet Union, Displaced Persons repatriation also had serious consequences The former forced laborers, the liberated because they were under general suspicion concentration camp prisoners from the va- of having been collaborators. They were of- rious European countries and the survivors ten detained and interrogated in so-called of the Holocaust were in urgent need of sup- filtration camps for months on end on their port when they were liberated, especially as return. Some of them were taken to Soviet far as medical care and supplies of food and forced labor camps. Nonetheless, the Soviet clothing were concerned. This assistance Union had not recognized the status of the was provided by the Allies and by Allied DPs and insisted on their being returned to aid organizations – initially by the United their countries of origin as quickly as possib- Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Admi- le. During the months that followed the libe- nistration (UNRRA) and later by the Inter- ration, the western Allies, on the other hand, national Refugee Organization (IRO). The came to the conclusion that no one could be support provided by the Allies included re- forced to return to their country of origin if gistering the DPs and tracing their relatives. they raised valid objections. The Western From 1948 onwards, tracing activities were Allies subsequently helped DPs who did not concentrated at the then ITS in Arolsen. want to return to their native countries to Hospitals were built to treat the sick, and emigrate to other countries. The IRO, which children's centers were set up to look after assumed responsibility for looking after the and care for unaccompanied children and DPs in mid-1947, was charged with provi-

Magazine from 29/01/2020 17 Discussion ding DPs who wished to emigrate with as- Supported by various bodies, including Je- sistance in finding a host country. DPs could wish welfare organizations, Jewish DPs apply for assistance with emigration under were able to make preparations for their a resettlement program. A number of coun- emigration there by taking language lessons tries were eventually willing to accept DPs. and attending vocational training courses. These were mainly traditional countries of The DPs played an active role in organizing immigration, such as the USA, Canada and camp life. There was a camp administrati- Australia, and other countries that needed on and a camp police force, children were workers. Although the immigration regu- looked after in kindergartens and were given lations of the destination countries were a lessons in the schools. The DPs set up their little more liberal than they had been before own newspapers, cinemas, theaters, and sy- the war, there were still restrictions. It was nagogues. To commemorate the victims of especially difficult for sick people to find a Nazi persecution, they erected the first mo- host country willing to take them. Many of numents and organized memorial ceremo- the Jewish DPs wanted to emigrate to Pales- nies. tine. However, this was not easily managed Starting in the summer of 1946, the camps until the state of Israel was founded in 1948. for Jewish DPs also attracted thousands of Sometimes a number of years passed before Jewish refugees from Central Eastern Euro- people were actually able to emigrate. The pe who could not stay in their former places Allied aid organizations in West Germany, of residence, such as Poland, because of the Austria and Italy set up so-called DP camps antisemitism they faced there. They had to provide temporary accommodation. The- survived the Holocaust and had initially re- se camps were a transit area for people who turned to their places of origin, but now they saw their future in other countries, far away entered occupied Germany, most went to from Europe. the US zone, in order to emigrate from the- The Situation re. Some of them were Polish Jews who had of Jewish Displaced Persons fled to the Soviet Union in 1939 following Originally, the camps were structured accor- the German invasion of Poland or who had ding to the countries of origin of the respec- found themselves there after the Soviet oc- tive DPs. However, Jewish survivors in these cupation of eastern Poland. Thousands of camps were faced with antisemitism all over these people had been sent to Siberia by the again. Once an investigative commission set Soviet administration and had later come to up by US President Truman had revealed the Central Asian Soviet republics by vari- the sometimes catastrophic conditions in ous circuitous routes. From there, they re- the camps and had highlighted the special turned to Europe after the liberation. The situation of Jewish DPs in particular, special Allies called these refugees "infiltrees." camps were set up especially for Jews. Many DP camps were closed as more and

Magazine from 29/01/2020 18 Discussion more people emigrated, especially after the of charge and can be accessed at https:// founding of the State of Israel in 1948. The arolsen-archives.org/en/learn-participate/ last camp in Föhrenwald, south of Munich, learning-with-documents/. was closed in 1957. Responsibility for the DPs had been transferred to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1951 already, when the IRO had ceased its activities. Those Displaced Persons who were unable or un- About the authors willing to emigrate for a variety of reasons Dr. Akim Jah, a political scientist, is a Research remained in Germany and were granted Associate in the Research and Education De- "homeless foreigner" status. partment of the Arolsen Archives Elisabeth Schwabauer studied Education and Documents on Displaced Persons in German Language and Literature and is an the Arolsen Archives Educational Consultant in the Research and Education Department of the Arolsen Archives The documents on the DPs preserved in Bad Arolsen comprise documents on individual people from nearly all the countries of Eu- rope and include applications to the IRO for support, case files of unaccompanied children, registration cards, and papers which portray the situation in the many DP camps. Other collections contain information about repatriation to countries of origin, emigration to other countries, and about the activities of the ITS and the later Arolsen Archi- ves, which continues to support survivors and the relatives of people who were mur- dered in tracing family members and documenting their detention in a camp. The documents can be searched in the so-called ITS Digital Archive on site in Bad Arolsen. A vast selection of the documents are also accessible in the Online Archive. Further information and carefully prepared educational materials can be found in the educational offerings provided by the Arolsen Archives, which are available free

Magazine from 29/01/2020 19 Discussion

Learning with Biographies. tom.« If these lines written by Primo Levi Objectives, Opportunities and are taken literally, there are no surviving Limitations of Educational contemporary witnesses of the German po- Work with Life Stories and licy of extermination. The people who were Biographical Fragments about killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, in Former Victims of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, in the camps Nazi Persecution of “operation Reinhardt”, are no longer with By Ingolf Seidel us. Often, all that is left of them is an anony- mous mass grave, and so there is usually not Learning with biographies is essentially even a place where the bereaved can mourn about using life stories to approach the today. The perpetrators of these crimes events of a specific historical epoch from a made every effort to ensure that no witnes- subjective perspective. In the context of Na- ses to these murders survived. tional Socialism, it is usually understood to mean learning based on individual histories At the same time, our everyday knowledge of persecution suffered by survivors of the and the desire to communicate that lies German policy of extermination. The focus at the heart of our work as educators go is on the testimony of survivors of National against Primo Levi’s words. We are aware of Socialism - “contemporary witnesses” is the the existence of countless reports made by vague term often used to describe them to- survivors and preserved in archives. The ar- day. Biographical learning in connection chive of the Shoah Foundation alone, which with perpetrators, bystanders, or people was founded by Steven Spielberg and is part who have been incriminated by others etc. of the University of Southern California plays at best a marginal role in this canon. (USC), contains over 50,000 interviews. We are familiar with Yehuda Lerner’s account of Contemporary Witnesses and the Sobibor uprising and of his escape from Historical Learning the camp, which he speaks about in Claude As the concept of contemporary witnesses is Lanzmann's documentary titled “Sobibor, closely connected with questions of histori- October 14, 1943, 4 p.m.” Yes, even surviving cal learning using biographies, I would like inmates of the so-called Sonderkommando to begin by quoting Primo Levi‘s well known in Auschwitz have given testimony in writ- and unsettling words on the subject of wit- ten and visual form, including Jakow Silber- nesses: berg, the protagonist of Karl Fruchtmann’s »We, the survivors, are not the true wit- 1987 film „Ein einfacher Mensch“ (a simple nesses. (…) We survivors are not only an man). exiguous but also an anomalous minority: Written accounts can also bear witness. The we are those who by their prevarications or nature of ego-documents such as letters, di- abilities or good luck did not touch the bot- aries and memoirs is, of course, different.

Magazine from 29/01/2020 20 Discussion

Persecutees record their sufferings, their re- act the hierarchization of these groups that sistance, or their survival strategies in these is seen in practice and that results in their ego-documents, which embody the victims‘ marginalization. perspective. However, in the witness state- It is a sad fact that the National Socialist ments recorded by the media or transcribed genocide of Sinti and Roma people, which during the Nazi trials, there is already some has its own specifics, is remembered as an blurring of the clarity which stems from the afterthought at best. Similarly, the almost notion that these statements are testimonies uninterrupted continuation of antiziganism given from a strictly first-person perspecti- after 1945, which is evident in the life stories ve. Even the camera perspectives used du- of the Sinti and Roma minority as well as in ring the Eichmann trial constitute an ele- archival documents, is hardly mentioned, ment of staging by third parties. in contrast to secondary antisemitism. In Documents in archives, here the documents recent years, the forced laborers who were in the Arolsen Archives in particular, repre- exploited so murderously have come to re- sent different perspectives. These might be ceive a little more attention. And some semi- the perspectives of perpetrators, if the docu- nars cover the biographies of homosexuals ments concerned are files which come from in concentrations camps. More attention is concentration camps, for example. Or they also now being paid to the murders perpet- may represent the bureaucratic perspec- rated by the Nazis on the sick as well as on tive of people from aid organizations who the T4 campaign. worked with survivors. These documents But who is providing pedagogical support are contemporary testimonies too, albeit and who is reminding us of the second lar- from the point of view of the perpetrators or gest group of victims? This group consists other parties. of about 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war. Marginalized Victim Groups Where has the debate about so-called anti- Learning with biographies or with biogra- social elements or alleged career criminals phical elements provides the opportunity found its way into educational contexts? to demonstrate the heterogeneous nature Even Social Democrats and Communists, of the victims of persecution; this applies who were the first victims of the Nazi state, in particular, but not exclusively, to Je- receive only marginal attention today. The wish persecutees who did not become "THE usually unintentional hierarchization of the JEWS" until their homogenization through victims that is seen repeatedly in practice, National Socialist ideology. When dealing is primarily, but not only, carried out by the with Nazi history, it is also necessary to de- dominant society. All these groups are not vote attention to the biographies of other simply "forgotten victims" – they were and groups of persecutees in order to counter- still are marginalized in the discourse of re-

Magazine from 29/01/2020 21 Discussion membrance. It is certainly true that archives which takes the perspective of the victims contain hardly complete biographies – and into account and gives it a central place. still fewer ego-documents – about so-called Among other things, (videographed) inter- anti-social elements or people who were views with survivors of German extermination policy are available for this purpose. forced to wear the green triangle that identi- This approach, which Friedländer concei- fied career criminals. However, biographical ved for the persecuted Jews, should not be traces of a wide range of different groups of limited to them alone. Ultimately, exami- persecutees can be found in the holdings of ning and communicating the perspective of the Arolsen Archives – and not only there. the victims is just as important as exami- The Perspectives of the Victims of ning and communicating the perspective of Persecution and Integrated History the perpetrators or the history of events and structures. In this context, we also need to Discussions with contemporary witnesses tell the life stories of the persecutees before and recorded interviews with survivors are and, in the case of survivors, after their per- used in educational contexts with the in- secution, as well as focus on their reactions tention of making it possible to experience to the persecution and on decisions in order history from a subjective perspective and of to ensure that these people are not reduced making history more accessible. At the same to the status of victims. For me, however, it time, according to Matthias Heyl, subject- remains unclear whether the absolutization orientation also means »enabling young of this perspective in educational contexts, people to analyze a historical situation as while correct, may in fact prevent a confron- well as their own references to it in order tation with the concept of guilt in all its vari- to be able to search for ways and means of ous forms - and ultimately constitute an af- finding their own individual perspective on firmation of post-National-Socialist society, the historical situation which presents itself which, at the expense of repressing its own to them and to do so in the context of their responsibility and "secondary guilt" (Gi- ordano), believes itself to be able to free its- own interests.« This requires them to dis- elf from guilt by identifying with the victims tance themselves from both victims and per- and sacralizing them. petrators in a way that is not always possible during a discussion with a contemporary This leads me to question the purpose of witness involving intense emotions. Docu- using biographies in an educational context. ments from archival collections can help to What do we aim to achieve by working with contemporary testimonies or by analyzing create this distance as they are indirect re- biographies? Is it all about instigating a sen- ports about a person. se of personal involvement and about emo- It is due to the great historian Saul Fried- tionalization? Or is it a question of simply länder that history is increasingly being re- reconstructing biographies, especially with counted in the form of "integrated history", a view to evaluating historical documents?

Magazine from 29/01/2020 22 Discussion

Does the much-hailed concept of authenti- individual stories of suffering. Traditional city play the most important role? Or is it all textbooks still have an important role to about conveying the history of events from play here, although a number of problematic a subjective perspective? Whatever the con- aspects are seen over and over again, such crete objective in schools and other educa- as the way Jews are hardly ever depicted as tional contexts may be, when we work with active agents. biographies, as with any other source, and The abovementioned processes can also be this cannot be emphasized often enough, inferred from biographical fragments from historical integration within the history of collections of files held in archives. Some of National Socialism is essential. The narra- these documents were created or used by tive competence called for in schools can perpetrators. This means that when wor- only develop when the historical context is king with archival documents, the first step not hidden by the powerful nature of discus- should be to reveal the provenance of the sions with contemporary witnesses and ego- source in order to understand whose per- documents. spective is involved. It follows that the data When learning with biographies, as when the documents contain must be subjected working with biographical archival docu- to a critical appraisal. Many types of documents, it is therefore neither adequate nor ments (e.g. registry office cards from con- sufficient to consider individual biographies centration camps) are not self-explanatory. in isolation or to deal exclusively with indi- Unlike discussions with contemporary wit- vidual stories of persecution. When working nesses or interviews which have been recor- in an educational context, we must, and I un- ded on video, archival material has to be dis- derstand this is in a normative sense, reveal covered and collated. This in itself calls for a the underlying ideologies (primarily antise- more intensive examination of the materials mitism and racism), the social and political involved. A biography is not available to par- processes (such as the radicalization of Nazi ticipants as a finished product, they have to politics during the war and the sometimes explore it, or even research it, for themsel- competing interests of Nazi institutions), ves. This research-centered approach provi- and the cultural context. And the concrete des special opportunities for differentiation circumstances and historical events must when learning with biographies. also be taken into account, by examining the An additional difficulty that may – and pro- history of the concentration camps, for ex- bably will – arise is the fact that it is often only ample. possible to reconstruct fragments of a bio- Consequently, imparting knowledge about graphy on the basis of archival documents. the history of events and about the structu- However, these biographical elements are ral history of National Socialism is essential not unsuitable for use in the context of his- for a real understanding of biographies and torical learning. What is more important in

Magazine from 29/01/2020 23 Discussion such cases is to explore, discuss and present the reasons for and the background to the gaps. Gaps in a person's biography can also serve to symbolize fractures in their life story or biographical fragment, which were in fact caused by their persecution or even their murder. One objective might be to investigate which aspects of a person's life do not feature in the files created by perpetrators, i.e. to explore how the files negated a person's reality and robbed them of their humanity even while they were still alive. In fact, the biographical fragments which can be gleaned from the documents in the Arol- sen Archives concretize Moishe Postone's analysis, which holds that the National So- cialist perpetrators and those who collabo- rated with them turned the Jews they persecuted into shadows, numbers, and ciphers.

About the author Ingolf Seidel is Project Manager and Editor of the online magazine „Learning from History“.

Magazine from 29/01/2020 24 Discussion

Working with Historical learning goals are connected with this ap- Documents from the Arolsen proach? Which potentials does it ultimately Archives in an Educational offer for historical education? The present Context article explores these questions and outlines a step-by-step procedure for using historical By Akim Jah documents in educational contexts. Wor- The Arolsen Archives (known as the Inter- king with historical sources is understood as national Tracing Service, ITS, up until May a methodological-didactic approach which 2019) hold millions of documents related to enables young people to learn to assess and persecution under National Socialism, the interpret sources independently. Holocaust and Displaced Persons. They in- Archival Documents as Source clude official documents and forms, index Materials for Historical Education cards from administrative bodies but also registration documents, lists of names, and Unlike factual texts about history, archival documents connected with applications of documents cannot be seen in isolation, i.e., various kinds. they are – perforce – not self-explanatory. What we see and read when we look at do- Many of the documents are about indivi- cuments superficially is not necessarily con- dual people, they relate to specific persons, gruent with their historical significance. in particular to former victims of National Because they were produced in a specific Socialist persecution. The documents are context and for a specific purpose, they re- paradigmatically suitable for use in histori- flect the views of the person who created cal education in the context of archival pe- them and contain only information that was dagogy. They provide an ideal approach to relevant to the specific function that the do- the subject of persecution during National cument had at the time. Seen from today's Socialism and the Holocaust, or to the histo- perspective or from the point of view of so- ry of the immediate post-war period and the meone who is not an expert, the informa- situation of Displaced Persons. tion contained in such documents is often The concept of working with historical docu- neither easy to understand nor clear. What ments in an educational context is rooted in is more, historical documents usually re- the assumption that these documents provi- flect the standpoint of their author, which de an opportunity to learn about the period can reveal itself in the way the contents are in question and about the contexts within formulated, for example, or in terminology which the source documents were created. that may be discriminatory, trivializing, or But what does this kind of learning look like euphemistic in nature. This applies similarly in practice? Which steps need to be taken to to index cards and forms such as question- ensure that historical documents are sub- naires. These too were created for a specific jected to qualified examination and which purpose and reflect a specific standpoint.

Magazine from 29/01/2020 25 Discussion

And the people who filled out such forms Comprehension, Source Criticism were tied to the structure and the rules laid and Source Interpretation down for appropriate entries, i.e. they were Comprehension refers to the process of un- restricted in the answers they could give. derstanding what kind of document we have Moreover, they found themselves in a speci- before us, i.e. Finding out when, for whom, fic (coercive) situation and were also pursu- and for what purposes it was created, and ing their own interests. It should also be no- what its key message is. Some of this infor- ted that some forms were filled out by third mation (the name of the document, for ex- parties, not by the respondents themselves. ample) can be deduced from the document Supplementary elements (added later) in itself, while other information has to be de- the form of stamps or comments also need ciphered, decoded or interpreted first. Many to be taken into consideration. documents, especially forms or index cards Consequently, historical documents have to which have already been filled out, contain be deciphered, read critically, interpreted, entries that are legible, but which are almost and put into context before they can be un- impossible to understand without specific derstood. Reading a historical document is explanatory information, or which can only quite different from reading a factual text be understood to a limited degree without as the examination of a historical document it. In order to put a document into its spe- may well not lead to all the facts being es- cific historical context and understand the tablished beyond doubt, nor must such an meaning of the terms, abbreviations and re- examination leave no questions unanswered ferences it contains, it may be necessary to and no contradictions unresolved. It may, have recourse to information which already however, give rise to new questions in turn, exists. When working with documents from which can make it necessary for students the Arolsen Archives, there are two ways of to consult other sources and even carry out dealing with this: 1. The workshop outlines further (archival) research of their own. and educational materials provided by the The steps to be taken when examining do- Arolsen Archives contain historical infor- cuments in an educational context are simi- mation and contextualizations which put the lar to the methods of historical research and documents in context and make them "rea- comprise comprehension, source criticism dable." 2. The online e-Guide to the Arolsen and source interpretation. Ideally, these Archives uses a graphical user interface to steps should be followed when using a docu- describe common types of document and ment in an educational context, if necessa- explain entries that are found frequently in ry in an abbreviated form, and appropriate forms and administrative files in particular. guidance should be given by the teacher or Once the comprehension phase has been educator. completed, the next step is to investigate the content by performing source criticism. This

Magazine from 29/01/2020 26 Discussion is the process of evaluating the document in tention in concentration camps, or the situ- respect of its credibility, its plausibility and ation and perspectives of displaced persons its accuracy. This can take the form of im- after liberation. manent criticism, e.g. By recognizing that The underlying aim of subjecting historical the young age noted on a prisoner registra- documents to critical examination is there- tion card from a concentration camp cannot fore not limited to the mere acquisition of be reconciled with the profession given on information, but goes beyond that to further the same card. This may also involve com- students' analytical and interpretational paring different sources, e.g. Analyzing and skills, which, for example, is an element in explaining contradictory information con- the core curricula of German schools. tained in different documents. In the spirit of the concept of research-based learning, this can involve gathering together various pieces of information about a person from different documents and subjecting them to a critical comparison. Questions as to the interests and the perspective of the author are also a component part of source criticism. Finally, source interpretation consists of About the author Dr. Akim Jah, a political scientist, is a Research putting the information that has been gathe- Associate in the Research and red into the historical context and evaluating Education Department of the Arolsen Archives it in the context of a specific question. Sour- ce interpretation requires a certain amount of historical knowledge. In a classroom situation, this means that students can use knowledge acquired during previous lessons or can explore the context while they work with the sources. So at this point, the emphasis is no longer just on the information that was gathered during the comprehension phase, but has now shifted to more general historical knowledge. This is especially true when working with biographical documents: the focus here is not on individual biographical details or the reconstruction of a biography, but on structural issues such as persecution under National Socialism, de-

Magazine from 29/01/2020 27 Discussion

Workshops and Training tain short introductory texts and questions Courses Based on Archival for students to work on. Documents and Aimed at The workshops cater to different time re- Educators in Schools and Other quirements and include one-day study pro- Contexts – an Educational grams as well as training courses that run Program Provided by the Arolsen Archives for a number of hours. On request, a specific (regional) focus can be taken into account By Akim Jah when selecting the documents for a work- The Arolsen Archives (known as the Inter- shop. national Tracing Service, ITS, up until May Workshop Schedule 2019) offer a range of workshops that are The introduction given at the start of every based on their extensive documentary hol- workshop takes the form of a presentation dings and are aimed at educators whose which provides an overview of the back- work involves teaching about core issues ground of the Arolsen Archives, the docu- of Nazi persecution and its aftermath. The mentary holdings kept there, and the his- target group mainly consists of teachers, es- torical context of the topic in question. For pecially history teachers at upper secondary example, the workshop on the subject of level, people involved in out-of-school edu- Nazi forced labor describes the function of cation, and educators who work for memo- forced labor under National Socialism and rial sites and archives. the living and working conditions of forced A workshop usually consists of three pha- laborers. The historical documents relevant ses: an introduction to the topic in question, to this topic preserved in the Arolsen Archi- work in small groups using selected docu- ves are then shown. The workshop on Dis- ments as examples, and a final evaluation placed Persons (DPs) describes the situation phase. During the course of the workshop, of the survivors of the Holocaust and of for- participants get to know the documentary mer forced laborers after liberation and uses holdings of the Arolsen Archives that rela- documents to show what kind of support te to the topic in question, learn about the was provided by Allied relief organizations. educational approach of learning with docu- The participants then work in small groups ments, and reflect on how they can use the and use color copies of historical documents potential of archival documents in their own to learn about a specific aspect of the topic work. At the end of the workshop, the parti- in question. Alternatively, they analyze sui- cipants receive a wide range of teaching aids table biographical documents, applying the which they can use in their own educational methods described for "learning with bio- work. These materials include copies of his- graphies". During the workshop on forced torical documents and worksheets that con- labor used as an example above, the indivi-

Magazine from 29/01/2020 28 Discussion dual working groups cover the different as- work, participants present their results to pects of forced labor in different places and the whole group and then discuss the topic for different companies, the surveillance, as a whole. The workshops conclude with a punishment and treatment of forced labo- discussion on how participants can use ar- rers as defined according to racial criteria, chival documents in the own work. and the special situation of pregnant forced Workshop Topics laborers. During the workshop on DPs, the General workshop on the Arolsen Ar- groups use administrative documents to fo- chives cus on the state (of health) of those liberated, the registration and the self-descriptions of A topical overview of the documents preser- DPs, their repatriation, and "life in transit." ved in the Arolsen Archives. The focus is on Alternatively, the paths taken by former per- getting to know the potential of the collec- secutees after liberation can be traced using tions for educational work on the following two different biographies. The critical ana- topics: the Holocaust, forced labor, death lysis of the documents follows the princip- marches, Displaced Persons, unaccompa- les of research-based learning and involves nied children, and the paths taken by survi- comparing the details given on the various vors after 1945 documents and "gathering" relevant infor- Holocaust mation from the documents. Documents The scale of the Holocaust is illustrated using from the post-war period are used in all the deportations from France and the German workshops, including those which focus on Reich as well as mass killings of Jews in Ser- the Nazi era. The main reason behind this bia and Eastern Europe by way of example is the desire to make it clear that life went on for survivors after the liberation and that Persecution of Sinti and Roma the injustice they suffered had far-reaching Introduction to and overview of the persecu- consequences. Helpful ideas for history tion of Sinti and Roma under National Soci- teachers are included for all working groups. alism. Attention is also paid to the subject This makes it possible to use the material in of antiziganism, which survivors were con- schools. fronted with after 1945 The number of documents given to the Concentration camp inmates working groups differs depending on the A critical analysis of the history of the per- amount of time available. One-day study secution of concentration camp prisoners, programs include two phases of group work: using Dachau as an example. The focus is participants deal with general aspects du- on the various different groups of prisoners ring the first phase before going into greater and the conditions in the camp, but also on depth during the second phase. During the the lives of former prisoners after liberation evaluation session which follows the group

Magazine from 29/01/2020 29 Discussion

Nazi forced labor Introduction to and overview of „civilian“ About the author forced labor under National Socialism. The Dr. Akim Jah, a political scientist, is a Research focus is on the use of forced labor in diffe- Associate in the Research and rent places and by different companies, the Education Department of the Arolsen Archives surveillance, punishment and treatment of forced laborers as defined according to- ra cial criteria, and the situation of pregnant forced laborers Displaced Persons (DPs) Introduction to and overview of the history of DPs, with a focus on Holocaust survivors and former forced laborers and including the activities of the Allied relief organizations UNRRA and IRO, repatriation, and emigration Unaccompanied children Introduction to and overview of the situation of unaccompanied children and young people who survived the Holocaust or were deported as forced laborers. The focus is on the paths of persecution of minors, their future prospects, the care provided by the Allies, and the activities of the Child Search Branch

If you are interested in any of these workshops, please send an email to education@ arolsen-archives.org. The workshops can be held in English and German, and some are available in Russian. We look forward to providing you with information about the conditions and the way to proceed. We are happy to visit you for this purpose.

Magazine from 29/01/2020 30 Discussion

The e-Guide to the Arolsen details that appear on the documents are Archives: a Versatile Online explained in simple language. There is one Tool that Can also Be Used in sample card per document and a zoom func- Historical Education tion is provided. Individual sections of the sample document (so-called overlays) are By Christiane Weber highlighted to indicate that explanations are In order to understand documents from the available. Arolsen Archives (known as the Internatio- The explanations make the documents and nal Tracing Service, ITS, up until May 2019) the information they contain readable, exp- in the sense indicated by the term source lain their historical function and the context analysis, pupils and teachers who work with in which they were created, and clarify con- archival documents in educational contexts tent that would otherwise be impossible to need a broad knowledge both of the histo- understand. Even abbreviations which may rical context in which the documents were seem unimportant at first can reveal a great created and of the details they contain. deal about the fates of the people for whom This knowledge has been brought together the cards were created – but they have to in the e-Guide of the Arolsen Archives. The be decoded first, because the documents do e-Guide (the "e" stands for electronic) is not speak for themselves. For example, even available on the internet free of charge and experts are often uncertain what it means provides detailed information on the docu- when the name of a camp appears in a spe- ments most commonly found in the Arolsen cific position on a card: does this signify that Archives. The emphasis is not so much on the person concerned was imprisoned there individual index cards that represent the previously or does it indicate that they were personal fate of a concentration camp in- deported there from somewhere else? Nor is mate, forced laborer, or Displaced Person, it immediately clear to anyone who looks at but rather on the type of document itself. a personal effects card that these cards list Documents that are related to individuals, personal property that was confiscated from such as questionnaires and index cards, take concentration camp prisoners, for examp- center stage. They include prisoner regist- le. And without contextual knowledge, it is ration cards from the concentration camps, almost impossible to understand what the registration cards of Displaced Persons, and details and abbreviations on a labor assign- registration documents for forced laborers, ment card mean, to mention a third examp- for example. le. In addition to the historical context of their As well as explanations, the e-Guide also use (who used the document, why, how, contains a wealth of further information, when, and what for? Where was it issued including quotations from accounts given and by whom?), abbreviations and other by survivors and, above all, a large number

Magazine from 29/01/2020 31 Discussion of documents that shed light on the specific The e-Guide was developed with the sup- historical context. The e-Guide also presents port of various memorial sites, researchers the different variations of specific types of from all over the world, and longstanding documents. employees of the Arolsen Archives. It can There are three ways of accessing the de- be accessed in English and German at htt- scriptions of the documents: as well as pro- ps://eguide.arolsen-archives.org, and it is viding a conventional list of the names of the growing all the time. The first documents to cards and a full-text search, the e-Guide also be included in the e-Guide were about 30 of features a visual point of access. Small ima- the most common concentration camp do- ges of all the cards covered by the e-Guide cuments and descriptions of the most fre- are displayed when the web page is opened. quently found documents on Displaced Per- This means that users who are looking for sons. Information on the documents about information of a general nature can click on forced laborers is planned to go online in cards that arouse their interest. A filter func- 2021. tion guides users to the correct description, If you have any ideas or suggestions for us, even if they do not know exactly what kind please e-mail us at eguide@arolsen-archi- of document they have in front of them. ves.org or call us on +49 5691 629 324. We The interactive design of the e-Guide caters look forward to hearing from you. for different levels of prior knowledge because it enables users to decide for themselves how much information they need. The target audiences of the e-Guide are very di- verse and include family members and survivors from Germany and abroad who receive documents from the Arolsen Archives About the author in response to their inquiries, students and Christiane Weber, a historian, is a Research As- academics who work with the documents, as sociate in the Research and Education Depart- ment of the Arolsen Archives. She is responsible well as users of the online archive. However, for designing and implementing the e-Guide, the e-Guide is particularly suitable for use in which aims to describe the most common documents which exist on concentration camp history lessons in schools or in out-of-school inmates, DPs and forced laborers. education. Teachers can consult the e-Guide in advance to familiarize themselves with the context of the historical documents they plan to use during their lessons. But students, too, can also use the e-Guide to find out about the documents themselves in the context of research-based learning.

Magazine from 29/01/2020 32 Discussion

Supporting Trips to Memorial tes in the German-speaking world have been Sites on the Basis of Documents participating in this test phase. On the basis from the Arolsen Archives: the of the experience gained so far, the project documentED Project will be included as a permanent element in the future educational offerings of the Arol- By Christian Höschler sen Archives. The Arolsen Archives (known as the Inter- Basic Concept national Tracing Service, or ITS, up until May 2019) contain over 30 million docu- A school class is planning a trip to a con- ments with information on the fate of more centration camp memorial site. What can than 17 million victims of Nazi persecution. the teacher do in advance to prepare the The holdings include records from the Na- students for the visit? This is where the do- tional Socialist concentration camps, docu- cumentED project comes in. The Arolsen ments on forced labor during the Second Archives offer so-called toolkits on their World War, and material from the period website, containing documents from dif- after liberation which includes documents ferent concentration camps that are today produced by the Allies during the occup- kept in the Arolsen Archives. These toolkits ation and the correspondence that the ITS can be downloaded by teachers and are rea- exchanged with survivors and their relatives dy-to-use. When selecting the documents to over a period of some decades. This unique be used in the project – typically, documents collection holds great potential for histori- related to individual people are chosen, such cal-political educational work. It is against as prisoner registration cards or question- this background that the Arolsen Archives naires – the needs of teachers and students are engaging in new educational activities are taken into account. How much time is which focus on teaching about the history of available for preparing the trip to the me- Nazi persecution. morial site? Is the visit planned as a (half) day trip or will it be part of a project week? One example is a new project titled docu- How much prior knowledge of the subject mentED – a portmanteau word combining of Nazi persecution do the students have? documents and education – which uses do- What learning goals have been defined? cuments from the Arolsen Archives as the Should students be given the opportunity to basis for preparing trips to concentration work on other documents after visiting the camp memorial sites and for relevant fol- memorial as a follow-up to the trip to the low-up activities. historical site? These are just some of sever- This article describes the concept behind the al important questions. For that reason, the project, which is still in the early stages. Tri- documentED toolkit has been designed as als of the documentED project started in the a flexible resource and can be used in diffe- summer of 2018; a number of memorial si- rent ways, in accordance with the time and

Magazine from 29/01/2020 33 Discussion resources available. their profession? Why were they arrested by The Arolsen Archives can also compile an the National Socialists and imprisoned in a individual, “customized” documentED tool- concentration camp? Did they survive the kit for a particular group, should this be re- persecution? If so, what was their life like af- quired. This will usually involve using the ter liberation? Students can use the informa- ITS Digital Archive to research documents tion that can be gleaned from the documents with a link to prisoners who originally came in the archive to examine the concrete fate from the same town or region as the young of a specific individual. This can serve as the people in the group. If, for example, a school starting point for considering the structural class from Jena wants to visit the Buchen- history of Nazi persecution. This way of in- wald concentration camp memorial site, the troducing the subject is both methodically Arolsen Archives can search their holdings and didactically more suitable than reading for documents on prisoners from Jena who long factual texts in which Nazi persecution were detained in the Buchenwald concent- is described in all its horrible detail, but may ration camp. largely remain abstract, for example. Relating Learning to Students' Contextualization Everyday Lives Most of the documents in the Arolsen Ar- In the case of the individualized toolkit, chives that relate to the National Socialist when the Arolsen Archives find suitable documents, it should be possible to establish a concentration camps are perpetrator do- connection with two localities that are fami- cuments. They were used in a specific his- liar to the students – a connection with the torical context, in this case in the context memorial site the students are visiting and a of concentration camp administration. Be- connection with the place where the students cause documents of this type reflect the in- live. These links can be used to help students human ideology of the National Socialists relate what they learn to the circumstances and are highly problematic in terms of their of their own lives. For instance, if a prisoner information content – the way prisoners' registration card from the Buchenwald con- physical characteristics were recorded and centration camp gives a prisoner's former the categories that were used to classify pri- address, this address may well be familiar to soners are just two examples of this – they the students. The realization that a former can never be used in isolation in the context victim of persecution came from the same of educational activities. Instead, when used place as the group which is now visiting the in the classroom, the documents need to be historical site where that person was impri- carefully deconstructed and must be view- soned ideally arouses genuine interest on ed in relation to the context in which they the part of the students: Who was this per- were created. It is essential that students son who came from the same town as me? gain an understanding of who created the What was their background and what was documents for what purpose and that they

Magazine from 29/01/2020 34 Discussion be made aware that the content of the do- kits. Accompanying texts aimed at teachers cuments must be viewed with a critical eye. discuss fundamental aspects that the Arol- This is why the documentED project does sen Archives deem to be important when not stop at providing raw source materials. using the documents in an educational con- It also encourages the use of the e-Guide, text. which can be accessed on the website of the Working with person-related documents Arolsen Archives and helps to explain the on Nazi persecution and its consequences documents and put them into context. The brings students into contact with the fate e-Guide is a digital tool that describes the of individuals. However, the picture that form and function of the most common ty- results necessarily remains incomplete; it pes of documents found in the Arolsen Ar- is impossible to reconstruct an entire path chives, including the most frequently found of persecution or a full biography. While it concentration camp documents. Central can be argued that the potential inherent in questions (Who created the document and research-based learning constitutes a dis- what was the background to its creation? tinct advantage, missing information and What needs to be taken into account when gaps in the content – which can result from working with this document?) are answered the existence of contradictory details in the in detail with an emphasis on the use of sim- documents – can present students with pro- ple language. blems and can have a negative effect both This means that even pupils with little pri- on motivation and on learning outcomes. or knowledge can work with the documents This means that teachers have to be prepa- because the contextual knowledge they need red for certain reactions from their students. is made available to them, in fact they can They can remind students of the fragmenta- piece it together for themselves. On the one ry nature of the documents – a fact which is hand, this is intended to prevent students of key importance for the critical analysis of from drawing the wrong conclusions from historical sources – while encouraging them source documents created by perpetrators. to conduct further research at the same time. On the other hand, this method is especially Local archives are often the best place to go suitable for research-based learning, which in order to find out more about the former gives students the opportunity to develop persecutees or about the general history of the skills they need to deal with sources cri- Nazi persecution in a specific place. Alter- tically. natively, students can examine documents from the post-war period (documents from Information for Teachers the Allied Displaced Persons camps, for ex- In addition to the documents and the e-Gui- ample) in order to place knowledge acquired de, information for teachers constitutes the in connection with a visit to a memorial site third component of the documentED tool- into a broader context. documentED provi-

Magazine from 29/01/2020 35 Discussion des differentiated yet concise explanations of these and other points which are important when working with documents from the Arolsen Archives. In summary, documentED toolkits are much more than just tailor-made collections of materials complete with valuable contextual information; they serve as an easy-to-use aid for any teacher who wants to use source materials about the history of Nazi persecution effectively in connection with a trip to a memorial site.

About the author Dr. Christian Höschler studied History, English, and Educational Sciences in Munich. He is Deputy Head of the Research and Educa- tion Department at the Arolsen Archives.

Magazine from 29/01/2020 36 Discussion

The Use of Person-Related ment Go in an effort to meet these needs Documents from the Arolsen more effectively. Groups who wanted to visit Archives in the Work of the Max the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Mannheimer Study Center and take part in a study program were given Dachau documents that were specially selected for them from the holdings of the Arolsen Ar- By Steffen Jost and Nina Ritz chives to help them prepare for their visit. The number of German schools that visit These files (or file excerpts), which are full concentration camp memorial sites or docu- of fragments of biographical information mentation centers as part of their work on about former prisoners, made it possible to the subject of National Socialism is still ri- establish a connection between the place a sing. Depending on the type of school, the particular group came from and the Dachau visit is normally scheduled in year 9 (Gym- concentration camp. nasium and Realschule), sometimes even in Although working with historical docu- year 8 (Hauptschule and Mittelschule). But ments above and beyond the short excerpts visitors also include vocational schools (Be- provided in school textbooks is a common rufsschulen), out-of-school youth groups, feature of many history lessons today, many and international groups. While most of students are still fascinated when they are these groups take part in a short educatio- given the opportunity to apply the principles nal program, such as a guided tour, during of research-based learning and work with a their visit, a growing number of groups are large quantity of historical documents or interested in using the opportunity to return even whole files. The regional-historical to specific topics they have already covered approach, which involves working with a during school lessons or as part of a project. selection of documents on former Dachau At the Max Mannheimer Study Center in prisoners who have some kind of geographi- Dachau, we have found that it is primarily cal link to the group's place of origin, is an groups or group leaders who book a study excellent means of highlighting the relevan- seminar that lasts several days who are in- ce of examining the historical topic. The Do- terested in homing in on a specific topic to cument Go project was therefore aimed at make their trip to the memorial site a more generating greater interest during the pre- meaningful experience. These groups are paration phase before the actual trip to the not only interested in concrete historical memorial site. knowledge, they also want to develop various skills. In June 2016, the Max Mann- When person-related documents are used heimer Study Center joined forces with the to help prepare a group for a visit to a me- International Tracing Service Bad Arolsen morial site, they should ideally be used in (ITS, now known as the Arolsen Archives) advance – under the supervision of teachers and launched a pilot project named Docu- during history lessons, for example. Howe-

Magazine from 29/01/2020 37 Discussion ver, groups that take part in a three-day stu- timeline). During the discussion phase, par- dy program at the Max Mannheimer Study ticipants were then able to focus on a com- Center can use the documents at the begin- parison of the different ways in which the ning of the seminar under the supervision of documents came to be preserved, the vari- the educational specialists who work there. ous life paths and paths of persecution, and In practice, two different approaches proved the underlying reasons for them. popular. With the first approach, the whole With both approaches, key questions were group (max. 15 participants), divided into written on a flip chart as an aid: Who is smaller groups, all worked on documents mentioned in the documents? Which places about one and the same prisoner. With the did the person spend time in? When, where, second approach, the small groups worked and why were they imprisoned? What did on documents about different prisoners. the person do before and after their impri- In the first case, all the participants received sonment? What can we deduce about the the same set of documents and worked with person's personality? The origin of the sour- them on their own. They were given the task ces was also discussed in the plenary sessi- of finding out as much as they could about ons. Discussions about the origins of con- the person and noting the information centration camp documents, DP documents, down. The groups all came together at the and compensation documents gave rise to end and each one presented their results du- new questions which were dealt with during ring a plenary session. The complexity and the course of the study program. All in all, the scope of the historical documents as well working on documents that give an insight as problems with their legibility meant that into individual paths of persecution was not each group tended to find out different in- conducive to finding conclusive answers. On formation, rather than duplicating the infor- the contrary, we found that analyzing docu- mation found by other groups. The educator ments at the beginning of our programs – could document the results visually either before the visit to the Dachau memorial site during or after the plenary session. – led participants to formulate many questi- When the groups were given documents ons of their own. about different people, they documented Using Arolsen Archives documents to pre- the results themselves during the group pare visits to memorial sites as practiced work phase. Experience showed that this within the Document Go project and as approach took much longer and that it was further developed and continued by the both easier and more satisfying for the par- Arolsen Archives with the documentED ticipants if they already had previous expe- project has proved to be extremely valuable rience of working with sources. The results for the historical-political educational work were then presented or shown to the whole of the Max Mannheimer Study Center. Alt- group in various different ways (e.g. using a hough working with the documents requi-

Magazine from 29/01/2020 38 Discussion res all those involved to devote significantly more time in advance, this is justified by the educational experience which leaves a much more lasting impression on the participants.

About the authors:

Steffen Jost, a historian, worked as an educator at the Max Mannheimer Study Center, Dachau, up until September 2018. In October 2018, he became Head of the Education Department of the Concentration Camp Memorial Site Dachau. Nina Ritz, M.A. Jewish Studies and Philoso- phy, was Head of the Max Mannheimer Study Center, Dachau, up until September 2019. In July 2019, she became Head of International Education Centers of the Volksbund German War Graves Committee, Berlin.

Magazine from 29/01/2020 39 Discussion

The Arolsen Archives – a Very reasons. But it is this very departure from Special Learning Environment routine that contributes to the positive effect that excursions of this kind have on stu- By Marcus von der Straten dents' motivation. Another aspect worthy The following text is a report on the suc- of positive mention is the fact that a visit to cessful long-term cooperation that exists the Arolsen Archives, for example, enables between the Wilhelm-Filchner-Schule in students to experience history directly by Wolfhagen and the Arolsen Archives in giving them the opportunity to work with neighboring Bad Arolsen. documents that have neither been specially Alongside the use of descriptive texts, the prepared for use in the classroom nor previ- critical analysis of written sources has a firm ously deciphered. In the context of research- place in the disciplinary canon of methods based learning, this encourages students to used in the field of history teaching and has formulate their very own questions about long been an accepted element of standard history! textbooks. However, a difficulty with the The Arolsen Archives and source editions of many textbooks is the fact School - in Practice that they differ optically, i.e. (typo)graphi- The Wilhelm-Filchner-Schule and the Arol- cally, from real documents and that the di- sen Archives (formerly the International dactic approach applied sometimes changes Tracing Service, ITS) have been cooperating the material beyond recognition. But this in various ways since 2010. After attending does at least have the advantage of making it initial training courses, teachers were able to possible to contextualize and interpret his- use the archive for research purposes, recei- torical sources and incorporate descriptive ve digitized archival materials for use during texts within the rigid timeframe and metho- the preparation of visits to memorial sites, dological constraints of normal lessons. In and use publications from the Arolsen Ar- addition to these text-based materials, mo- chive for teaching purposes. In addition to dern learning should involve as many other these forms of project-specific cooperation, different types of sources as possible (ima- students are also allowed to use the archive ges, objects, and audio-visual sources), film and its library on their own when working documentaries, history films, digital media, on presentations or special assignments, for etc., as well as out-of-school learning envi- example. Day trips to the archive organized ronments. on a regular basis by the History Work- Visits to archives, for example, provide di- shop, an optional course for year 10/11, are dactical and methodological learning op- a central element of the cooperation. The portunities that, however, are not usually following procedure is usually followed: (or cannot usually be) exploited within the welcome and discussion of expectations, normal school routine for organizational presentation on the history and the mandate

Magazine from 29/01/2020 40 Discussion of the Arolsen Archives, introduction to the dents by introducing the subject matter in archival database, individual research in the advance. Lessons should cover key themes ITS Digital Archive with support from staff, appropriate to the specific focus of the visit complementary use of the library, short pre- (e.g. Nazi ideology and its supporters, pro- sentation of results, feedback, further work paganda and terror as instruments of power, and final presentations in school. The young organization and structure of the concent- people usually learn how to use the digi- ration camp system, groups of victims and tal archive very quickly at a technical level prisoners, everyday life in the camps, forced as it is a medium which is familiar to them labor). In addition, the teacher who accom- from their everyday lives. However, in view panies the group must be willing to provide of the complexity of the archival holdings, active and knowledgeable support. students require professional support from The Arolsen Archives are Europe's largest the helpful staff of the Arolsen Archives archive on National Socialist crimes and and from the teacher supervising the group their aftermath. As a tracing and informa- when it comes to conducting their own re- tion center, they are a particularly good research. While the questions students ask at source when it comes to searching for speci- first tend to be related to the application its- fic names and places within the territory of elf (directory structure, file paths, etc.) and the former German Reich or within the ter- to be of a general nature (technical terms, ritories which were occupied by Germany. foreign words), most of the questions they A large quantity of general documents and ask later on are concerned with specific as- person-related documents from the "Impri- pects of the subject of their research. Given sonment", "Forced Labor", "Displaced Per- appropriate support, most students are able sons" and "Tracing Service" sections of the to conduct their own research on a speci- archive are available to the learning groups fic topic successfully and to evaluate docu- and can be used by them for the purposes ments accordingly. The material that stu- of reconstructing individual fates or explo- dents find during their research is provided ring the contents of official documents. The free of charge at the end of the day so that archive comprises collections of Nazi do- they can continue to use it at school after- cuments as well as collections which come wards. The team at the Arolsen Archives will from the Allies, from the Arolsen Archives carry out further research on request. themselves, and from their predecessor or- The Potential of Research- ganizations. Most of the holdings have al- Based Learning at the Arolsen Archi- ready been digitized. ves for History Teaching The research carried out by the students is In order for a research visit to Bad Arolsen not always entirely successful or productive to be successful, it is essential to contact the for a number of reasons: sometimes the data staff at an early stage and to prepare the stu- or documents available on individual per-

Magazine from 29/01/2020 41 Discussion sons, specific places, or topics is only rudi- culture of writing, reading and reception mentary, and sometimes problems arise in (keyword: fake news), extracting meaning connection with documents in foreign lan- and reading critically have become all the guages or with documents that are damaged more important in recent times. In additi- or difficult to read. Despite these difficulties, on to subject-specific competences such as the young people are usually very satisfied source criticism, contextualization and in- with their achievements and with the sup- terpretation, studying official documents, port they receive. Because the students have for example, can also serve to sensibilize stu- such a high level of identification with their dents to the revealing, euphemistic language own work, it is often necessary to stop the used by the National Socialists or help them research session before the students are rea- recognise the inhumanity of administrative dy because of the limited time available. Re- processes. In this respect, the Arolsen Archi- search-based learning is particularly good ves offer challenging and varied opportuni- at fostering intrinsic motivation and has an ties for active, discovery-centered historical activating cognitive effect. Experiences of learning by encouraging students to formu- authenticity and empathy when viewing ori- late questions of their own, apply analytical ginal documents and considering the lives skills, develop problem-solving strategies of specific historical persons enhance lear- and hone their historical and contempora- ning: discovering a name on a deportation ry awareness (powers of perception, analy- list or looking at ego documents authored sis, judgement and orientation). At the end by a concentration camp survivor has a very of this process of independent, cooperative, different effect than reading an abstract de- co-determined and reflective learning, some scription of the same theme. kind of joint - and, if necessary, assessab- This approach leads to a deeper understan- le - product should result (narrative com- ding and to a concretization both of subject petence). This might be a commemorative matter that is familiar to the students from speech, commemorative plaque, exhibition previous lessons and of subject matter that display case, video, website, history newspa- is unfamiliar. Building on the desire to learn per, textbook chapter, presentation, poster, more about the Nazi dictatorship, the Ho- etc. locaust, and the immediate post-war peri- A Plea for Using od that many students express, their prior Archival Materials (from the Arolsen knowledge can be consolidated and expan- Archives) in Schools ded in this way – and with a definite regio- Generally speaking, greater use of existing nal focus too. archives, memorial sites, museums, librari- The students also practice and strengthen es etc. by schools should be encouraged, as their ability to deal with written sources, these environments provide opportunities a key competence. In view of the changing for experiential and discovery learning using

Magazine from 29/01/2020 42 Discussion concrete historical examples. Working with the Arolsen Archives and using the documents from the ITS Digi- About the author tal Archive have proved very successful in Marcus von der Straten was born in 1968 and practice, both from a general educational lives in Ahnatal, close to Kassel, Germany. He perspective and from the specific perspective studied Ancient History, Medieval History and Modern History, Economic and Social of history teaching. Going beyond everyday, History, Political Science, German Language run-of-the-mill lessons based on textbooks and Literature, and Education at the Georg- August University in Göttingen. He has been and worksheets provides teachers with the teaching History, German, Geography, Poli- opportunity to arouse genuine curiosity in tics, Economics, and Performing Arts at the Wilhelm-Filchner-Schule in Wolfhagen since students and to awaken their detective in- 2005. He is a senior teacher and became Head stincts. Confronting students with source of History in 2006. materials that have not been specially prepared for teaching purposes can help them develop competences that are both subject- specific and universal, both content-based and process-based. In the context of this institutional learning opportunity, students actually take ownership of a "school" topic and make it their own, they apply historical methods themselves, and participate volun- tarily with greater intensity.

Magazine from 29/01/2020 43 Discussion

"Who is 'We'?" lic of Germany ignored the consequences of On the Critical Analysis of this injustice, which included the loss of her Social Heterogeneity and the citizenship. Notion of Homogeneity in the The selection of documents taken from the Past and Present Arolsen Archives provide insights into life stories that illustrate central aspects of the By Christa Kaletsch and Manuel Glittenberg history of DPs. What is important here is that There are currently over 65 million refu- the documents are evidence of the percepti- gees worldwide – more than ever before. A ble mechanisms of exclusion, compensation detailed examination of the history of the and recognition. They do not tell a finely ho- Displaced Persons (DPs) can shed new light ned story. They only provide evidence that on the current debate on flight and human this story took place. The historical evidence rights and provide new insights into the pre- can serve as a sounding board for questions. servation of human dignity and the right to Not so much in its function as a historical self-determination. This was the context be- narrative, but rather with the aim of reflec- hind a joint workshop that was developed ting upon discourses, rituals and everyday on the initiative of the Demokratiezentrum practices. A picture can then emerge of the im Beratungsnetzwerk Hessen (Democracy DPs' freedom of action in relation to their Center in the Advisory Network of Hesse) by human rights. Both continuities and discon- the Arolsen Archives and the Zusammenle- tinuities become apparent. ben neu gestalten (Redesigning the way we "I was amazed to find out how much would live together) project of the DeGeDe (Ger- actually have been possible if the lead ta- man Society of Education for Democratic ken by the US administration had been fol- Citizenship). lowed," is a sentiment often expressed by "Where can someone be expelled to, if she participants at the end of the all-day work- was born in Arolsen" was one participant's shop. The differences between the adminis- astonished response. An examination of the trative practices of the military government documents on the history of DPs provided and the Federal German administration, by the Arolsen Archives makes it clear that into whose jurisdiction the "aftercare" of the injustices done in the name of National the DPs passed in April 1951, are one of Socialism continued for a long time after the the key insights gained during the "Who is creation of the Federal Republic of Germa- ‘we’?" workshop. The focus on the univer- ny. Like many victims of the Nazi regime sality of human rights has a central role to who were deported from Germany, Erna play here. This is why the participants are Demestre, who was persecuted as a "gypsy" asked to get actively involved in considering by the Nazi regime, was deprived of all her human rights at the beginning of the work- human and civil rights. The Federal Repub- shop. The starting point is the "question of

Magazine from 29/01/2020 44 Discussion happiness" raised by World Vision in their as well as limit the self-determination of 2010 children's study. On the basis of this those concerned. question, participants work individually to Not only does the example of Erna Demest- identify five aspects "which a child needs in re highlight aspects of homogenization and order to live happily." Subsequent discus- rights deprivation, her story also points sions in small groups broaden the perspec- to aspects of being forgotten and of being tive. The various aspects identified, which made invisible. An inquiry submitted to the usually concern the central issues of the ITS from the Caritas relief organization in right to protection, participation, and free- Frankfurt in 1969 provides documentary dom and which highlight the importance of evidence of how the withdrawal of citizen- social, economic, and cultural human rights, ship continued on well into the history of the can be dealt with in a plenary session. Federal Republic of Germany. Official poli- A short unit follows introducing the main tical recognition of the Nazi genocide of the aspects of the development of human rights Sinti and Roma did not follow until 13 years after 1945 and laying down the framework later – as a result of the struggle of the Sinti for working with the "biographical sketches" and Roma civil rights movement which be- later on. The discourse on dignity and the gan in the late 1970s. A hunger strike which significance of formulating concrete,- uni started on Good Friday in 1980 at the Dach- versal, and inalienable human rights are au Memorial has a special role to play here. brought together for the first time as partici- At the end of the workshop, consideration is pants reflect on the experience of the multi- given to struggles connected with visibility ple violations of human dignity. The Univer- and recognition and to other examples of sal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes self-empowering strategies implemented by every human being as an individual and those concerned similar to that mentioned as a legal subject. After a short presentati- above. They constitute a break with the me- on focusing on specific, individual human chanisms of "othering", i.e. the practice of rights, a discussion of a DP registration card defining people as being alien on the basis of strengthens the awareness that people who a dichotomous construct consisting of "us" were disenfranchised and persecuted by the and "them" and a consequent withdrawal of Nazi regime need to have their status as sub- affiliation which is a violation of the right to jects restored to them. non-discrimination. The way these mecha- Participants then divide up into small nisms work and their topicality are debated groups. Three different perspectives invol- previously: shortly after the NSU murder of ving various different aspects of the history Halit Yozgat on 6 April 2006 in Kassel, 4,000 of the DPs are highlighted during this phase people gathered together and demonstrated of the workshop, and there is a focus on the in front of Kassel's city hall calling for there role of various factors which can empower to be "no 10th victim". They drew attention

Magazine from 29/01/2020 45 Discussion to the racist background of his murder and to the links with the other murders carried out by the NSU. Many participants are astonished by how little this and other events of self-empowerment enter into the public consciousness. Ibrahim Arslan, a survivor of the racist ar- son attacks in Mölln in 1992, is one of the people involved in the NSU Tribunal. He un- derlines the importance of engaging with the perspective of those affected – a perspective which is often rendered invisible – as well as with their expertise and with their struggles: "Society must acknowledge the aggrieved parties and identify with them in order to put a stop to these kinds of crimes."

About the authors

Manuel Glittenberg studied Sociology (M.A.). He is an antisemitism and anti-racism consultant and trainer and a member of staff of the project „Zusammenleben neu gestalten. Angebote für das plurale Gemeinwesen“ (Redesigning the way we live together. Offe- rings for a plural society) which is run by the German Society of Education for Democratic Citizenship. Christa Kaletsch is a journalist specializing in history, and an author, program developer and consultant in the fields of constructive conflict resolution, participation, and education in democracy and human rights. She is head of the project „Zusammenleben neu gestalten“ (Redesigning the way we live together).

Magazine from 29/01/2020 46 Discussion

The Arolsen Archives and to get in. They were taken to the brick factory the Holocaust Survivors’ and immediately loaded into cattle wagons. Friendship Association – Thus began his journey into hell. After three Learning from History in days they arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau Partnership and Friendship where Eugene was selected for slave labour, and he never saw his family again. By Lilian Black Eugene was then sent on to Buchenwald, In August 2008, after a number of unsuc- Mittelbau-Dora, Harzungen, and Ellrich. In cessful attempts in previous years to secure March 1945, he was sent by train to Bergen- access to information at the International Belsen. He was liberated there on 15th April Tracing Service (ITS, today: Arolsen Archi- 1945 by the British forces. He was 17 years ves), Eugene Black and his eldest daughter of age, weighed less than 50 kilos, was an Lilian arranged to visit the archives in Bad orphan, and in the country of his enemies. Arolsen. Eugene was born Jeno Schwarcz He had experienced and witnessed the worst on 9th February 1928 into a Jewish family in humanity. After liberation, once he had in Munkacs, formerly Hungary. He was the recovered some of his health, he became youngest of five children and had three sis- attached to the British Forces as an inter- ters, Blanka, Jolan, and Paula, and an older preter, and in 1948, he met my mother, who brother, Alexander. His mother was called was with the British Army. They fell in love, Leni and his father Bela. They lived pros- and he came to Britain in 1949, where he perous and happy lives. Eugene’s father was married, had four children, two grandchild- not very religious, but his mother was, and ren, and a successful career with Marks and they kept a kosher house and had the Friday Spencer. Sabbath meal, often with members of the wider family. Eugene was a bright student, Growing up, we were never allowed to speak but his greatest love was football. He played about the camps. We knew father had been in the school team, and his mother fre- in the concentration camps and his family quently told him off for coming home with had been gassed, but there was a long si- dirty boots! On 19th March 1944, everything lence about something which was too horri- changed as the Germans occupied Hungary ble for words. We were not allowed to watch and their already well-rehearsed plans for TV programmes about the camps, anything the Final Solution were implemented. The German was ‘verboten’, and we were to be ghetto was formed, and families from out- protected at all costs. There were no pho- side Munkacs were forced in from the sur- tographs, no impression of how they had rounding areas. On 14th May, Eugene was looked or lived, and no possibility of father coming home from school when he saw his ever revisiting the former camps or retur- family being pushed into the back of a lorry. ning to his hometown. It was all just too He approached them and was himself made painful and too difficult. I remember as a

Magazine from 29/01/2020 47 Discussion child wondering why there were no mem- truly cathartic experience for us all, but es- bers of father’s family at our family parties pecially for father. He had faced his demons and how sad this was. and so had I. From this point on, we never Then, in 2005, we decided to attend the looked back and returned frequently to the 60th liberation commemoration event at annual commemoration events at Bergen- Bergen-Belsen and also to visit Mittelbau- Belsen, Mittelbau-Dora, and Buchenwald, Dora and Buchenwald. By this time, father keeping up our friendships with the memo- had retired and had started to speak about rial staff, who always welcomed us so won- his experiences in schools and to communi- derfully. ty groups. He and I both became members In 2006, father decided he wanted to re- of the Holocaust Survivors’ Friendship As- turn to Birkenau to pay his respects to his sociation (HSFA) in Leeds, and this is how family who had perished there. This was the our journey of discovery began. We were most difficult of journeys. For the first time, welcomed in Germany by some truly won- father could walk around the camp and see derful Germans, people like Sabine Stein, the bureaucracy, scale, and organisation of Jens-Christian Wagner, Bernd Horstman, death as it had been. However, there was no Diana Gring, and Thomas Rahe, who were smell of burning this time, he said. He re- giving their lives to working in the Memorial counted step-by-step his arrival and separa- sites day in day out, facing the past and the tion at the ramp and his subsequent entry actions of their forefathers, taking respon- into the camp, including his sheer terror sibility even though they had not themsel- and total confusion as to what was happe- ves perpetrated the crimes. I remember the ning. He described to us how he was strip- occasion on the evening after the liberati- ped and had all his hair removed from every on event, when we entered a restaurant in part of his body and how he was issued with Celle to have dinner after an emotional day. ‘striped pyjamas’ and underwear. He told us We must have looked like a survivor family, about how later on that night, when he saw dressed as we were in dark formal clothes, the chimneys blazing and there was a terri- and then something amazing happened. ble smell of burning, his friend’s father, Mr Everyone stood up and bowed towards us in Kornreich, who had survived selection, told contrition and respect. We just nodded and him that this was the bodies of their families tried to smile in acknowledgement. burning. This was the first time he told us This journey gave father the opportunity to this. It was a very sad visit, but it was born see a new Germany, not one which was des- with great fortitude by father. troyed and bombed, but one which had been In 2008, I again wrote to the ITS in Bad rebuilt, a Germany where he was made wel- Arolsen and said we would like to come and come and where it was acknowledged that see what records there were for father. I was he was a victim of the Holocaust. This was a immediately contacted by Gabriele Wilke of

Magazine from 29/01/2020 48 Discussion the ITS, who said she would look into the rian at Gelsenkirchen, and we arranged to go matter and be ready to meet us on the ag- there the next day. We took our leave of the reed date in August 2008. We arrived the- ITS staff, and drove to Gelsenkirchen, where re by car and were greeted by Gabriele and we were shown the railway line they came an interpreter, although we both spoke and in on from Auschwitz, the oil refinery which read German. We were taken to a room, and still exists, and the cemetery where there is there we saw several files which had been a memorial stone for the 151 Hungarian Je- extracted from the archive and contained all wish women killed in that fateful bombing of my father’s prisoner records. It was quite raid. Sadly, there is no memorial and indeed astonishing to see his Auschwitz card, one no memory of the incident at the present- from Buchenwald, and one from Mittelbau- day oil refinery judging by the company’s Dora, the transport lists, movement from website. Their broken bodies lie there still. block to block in Mittelbau-Dora, his sick After the war ended, correspondence shows records when he was ‘excused from tunnel- that the company denied any involvement in ling’, a liberation list from Bergen-Belsen, the use of slave labour as ‘they came under and a photograph from his International the Nazis.’ This continues to be unresolved Refugee documentation post liberation. The and is, for me, an unfinished story. bureaucracy of death was just astonishing to In 2010, I was elected as Chair of the Ho- us. locaust Survivors’ Friendship Association, Then Gabriele asked us if we were ready to and the membership of survivors determi- hear about the fate of his two sisters Paula ned that we should collect our survivor´s and Jolan. At this point we were quite wi- testimonies, continue to speak in schools thout words and in some shock. She then and to wider community groups, and under- produced the prisoner cards for father’s take Holocaust education. In addition, there two sisters who had been selected for slave were many precious letters, photographs, labour like him. They were sent with 1000 and some artefacts, quite ordinary but of Hungarian Jewish women to the Gelsenla- great emotional value, which had been ger in Gelsenkirchen to perform slave la- brought out through the Kindertransporte bour in the oil refinery and clear up after the or had been recovered post war. I was asked bombing raids. by many of the members whether there Also contained in the records was a death cer- could be any records of their families’ fate, tificate. They had both been killed in an RAF similar to those my father had found. bombing raid in September 1944. For 64 ye- Thus began a long relationship with the In- ars, my father and the whole family had be- ternational Tracing Service, now the Arol- lieved that his entire family had been gassed sen Archives. We found that by combining in Birkenau. The shock was enormous. The documentary evidence of persecution with a ITS then telephoned Stefan Goch, the histo- survivor’s story, we could take an evidence-

Magazine from 29/01/2020 49 Discussion based approach to our educational work. plans. We then raised the funds through the When we started receiving information from Heritage Lottery Funds, a number of phil- Bad Arolsen, so much was revealed to our anthropic trusts, family trusts, and indivi- survivor members. One person received the dual donations. The Centre opened in Sep- date and time of her stepfather’s death in tember 2018. Our Holocaust Exhibition and Sachsenhausen and the date of her biologi- Learning centre will create an immersive cal father’s death from the Auschwitz Death experience combining visual testimony with Book, another discovered that her mother narrative, artefacts, and our evidence base had been previously married and had had a provided by the ITS Digital Archive. child who had died and was now buried in In 2017, I was part of a UK delegation to Belgium. People received their own records Bosnia. This is a more recent genocide per- of persecution, which they had never seen petrated against the Muslim community, before, and this often filled in time gaps of much smaller in actual numbers but with not knowing for sure how long they had many parallels to the Holocaust in terms of been in a particular camp. To date, we have the processes used. In Bosnia, however, the- received hundreds of copies of documents re is no acceptance of responsibility. Male relating to our members through the Arol- survivors and the Mothers of Srebrenica sen Archives. told us how they had returned to their vil- Our friendship with the Arolsen Archives is lages to live amongst the perpetrators, who based on human contact with people who walked freely. There were no records, and care about our legacy and about how we some mass graves remain hidden. They have need to use this to alert the world to what no place to go to grieve and nowhere to get may happen when people are persecuted for information. There is a high level of denial whatever reason. This is the dearest wish of from ‘authorities’. This is in stark contrast to our survivor community, to make sure no our experience in Germany. Perhaps we need one ever suffers as they did simply because the passage of time to help heal wounds, or they were Jews. maybe the scars are there forever. I know It is to this end that we decided in 2016 to that we as a family and as an association ne- create a permanent Holocaust Exhibition ver forget our relatives and mourn their loss and Learning Centre at the University of everyday. But we believe that by working to- Huddersfield. There is no similar resource gether, we can secure our legacy and enable in the North of England, yet Holocaust edu- future generations to learn what happens cation is part of our national curriculum. when stereotyping and persecution become We came to Germany to discuss this with the norm. our German partners, including the Inter- In September 2017, Eugene Black died national Tracing Service, and sought ad- peacefully in his home, his most precious vice about our interpretative approach and place. He is missed by so many people. A

Magazine from 29/01/2020 50 Discussion man of great humour and humanity, he would wish us all to go on and never give up. He always said, “Life is for living.” His legacy forms part of the Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre. We are grateful to our many friends in Ger- many who helped us on our journey and especially to the Arolsen Archives for their professionalism and humanity. We value our partnership going forward. For more information about the Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre please refer to: www.holocaustlearning.org.uk.

About the author Lilian Black is daughter of Holocaust Survi- vor Eugene Black and Chair of the Holocaust Survivors’ Friendship Association, Leeds, England.

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Use of Archival Materials from litical prisoner Anna Palarczyk, the French the Arolsen Archives in my forced laborer Victor Laville, and the Sovi- Work as a Specialist at the et prisoner of war Mikhail Bochkarev were Academic Center for Oral retrieved from the archive and forwarded to History of the Voronezh Insti- me. Later, in agreement with the represen- tute of High Technologies tatives of the Archive, the documents were published on the educational platform. The- By Olga Kulinchenko se materials became an essential part of our In February 2017, as an employee of the document collection. They made it possible Academic Center for Oral History of the to present the problem of forced labor more Voronezh Institute of High Technologies, fully and to personalize it with biographical I participated in the International Winter films placed on the platform. School for Educators in Berlin, which was We are currently in the second stage of the dedicated to the history of Nazi Forced La- project – the implementation of the plat- bor and how it is remembered in post-war form in the school curriculum – and are now Europe. The Winter School was organized holding educational seminars for Russian by the Nazi Forced Labor Documentation teachers. Whenever we present the plat- Center Berlin-Schöneweide and the Interna- form, we emphasize the presence of materi- tional Tracing Service (ITS, today: Arolsen als provided by the Arolsen Archives as well Archives) in Bad Arolsen. The program in- as by other museums and memorials. cluded lectures, excursions, workshops, and individual and group work with documents The Academic Center for Oral History also provided by the organizations mentioned conducts educational activities in the form above. Within the framework of the seminar, of a school history club called “We and Our participants were encouraged to request in- Past.” Between 2015 and 2017, I supervised formation from the ITS Digital Archive on the work of the club in a school in Voro- topics of interest. I requested documents nezh. Created during that time, the online relating to respondents whose interviews platform "Learning with interviews. Forced are included on the online educational plat- Labor 1939-1945" provided the basis for our form "Learning with interviews. Forced La- work with school students. Classes devoted bor 1939-1945". This resource was created to studying materials from this educational by the Academic Center for Oral History of resource were given to students from ninth the Voronezh Institute of High Technologies to eleventh grade. The course aimed to help in cooperation with the Center for Digital students develop the skills they need in or- Systems of the Free University Berlin. Due der to work with a biographical interview to the kind involvement of Arolsen Archives as a historical source and to make them employees Akim Jah and Elisabeth Schwa- acquainted with a topic that is not addressed bauer, documents concerning the Polish po- by the history and social studies curriculum

Magazine from 29/01/2020 52 Discussion but whose significance nonetheless makes It is important to note that the organizers it worthy of attention. According to a poll of the Winter School created an atmosphe- conducted at the end of the academic year, re that was conducive to the free exchange students mentioned that the classes that in- of opinions, ideas, and experiences between volved working with archival sources and representatives from various fields, such personal documents were the most engaging as education, science, art, and culture. The and the most useful in helping them to ac- lectures, excursions, and practical exer- quire research skills. cises have opened up new opportunities and This work allowed the use of a wide ran- made it possible to develop new methods for ge of methods and techniques for teaching teaching the topic of Nazi forced labor using history. In the 2018-2019 academic year, I materials provided by the Nazi Forced La- used the documents relevant to forced labor Documentation Centre and the Arolsen bor provided by the Arolsen Archives in the Archives. framework of the Winter School as a base The experience I gained during the creation for curriculum development and as a source of the online platform "Learning with infor preparing tasks for individual and group terviews. Forced Labor 1939-1945" and my work for students who attended the history work as curator of the school history club school club. I plan to continue this work in contributed to the enhancement of my pro- the 2019-2020 academic year. fessional skills. Participation in the Winter It is worth pointing out that project work School empowered me to expand my ped- which involves teachers and students wor- agogical toolkit significantly. I can now use king together is a widely used educational new ideas to enrich the use of materials method in Russian schools and one that can from the Arolsen Archives about places of be applied to various types of sources. Not forced detention, forced labor, and the post- only does analyzing the information contai- war period. ned in the short biographical films on the online educational platform in conjunction with the archival materials mentioned above enable students to solve educational tasks, it also contributes to their personal development. On the one hand, it provides students About the author with the opportunity to see how the process Olga Kulinchenko is a specialist at the Aca- demic Center for Oral History of the Voro- of using forced laborers and their extermi- nezh Institute of High Technologies. nation was institutionalized, and on the other hand, it invites them to consider the tragedy of individuals included in seemingly endless lists.

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The United States Holocaust copies, were deposited within its collections. Memorial Museum and the For decades, the ITS worked on behalf of Collections of the Arolsen survivors and victims’ families to clarify the Archives fates of individuals under Nazi oppression, as well as to provide survivors and victims’ By Elizabeth Anthony families with documentation necessary for The United States Holocaust Memorial Mu- indemnification claims. The archive finally seum (the Museum, or USHMM) is a living opened and became available to scholars memorial to the Holocaust and strives to in- and other researchers in November 2007, spire citizens and leaders worldwide to con- both onsite in Bad Arolsen and around the front hatred, prevent genocide, and promo- world at seven digital copyholder locations. te human dignity. Since opening its doors in The ITS was renamed “Arolsen Archives - 1993, the USHMM has hosted more than 43 International Center on Nazi Persecution” million visitors. The Jack, Joseph and Mor- in May 2019. ton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust The USHMM – one of the copyholders of the Studies serves as the Museum’s scholarly di- ITS Digital Archive – utilizes the archive in a vision and works to support the growth of number of ways. The staff of the Holocaust Holocaust studies at universities in the Uni- Survivors and Victims Resource Center as- ted States, to foster relationships between sists survivors and their relatives to learn international organizations and individuals, more about their paths of persecution under and to ensure the ongoing training of fu- the Nazis, as well as the fates of their loved ture generations of scholars. Over the past ones. Museum staff in the Collections divisi- 10 years and among its many activities, the on uses Arolsen Archives holdings to docu- Mandel Center has promoted the use of the ment the histories of acquired artifacts and collections of the Arolsen Archives (former- paper collections. And the Mandel Center’s ly the International Tracing Service, or ITS) academic programming activities related to as a largely untapped source of immense the ITS Digital Archive include the conve- scholarly potential through academic pro- ning of research seminars, workshops, and gramming related to the ITS Digital Archive. conferences. Fellows-in-residence have ac- The Allied powers established the ITS in cess to the digital archive and staff expertise Arolsen (today: Bad Arolsen), Germany, af- for utilizing its resources, and staff resear- ter World War II as a resource to help reuni- chers use the Arolsen Archives to compile te families separated during the war and to information to document the more than trace missing relatives. Millions of pages of 42,000 Nazi sites of incarceration, forced captured Nazi documentation were repur- and slave labor, and mass murder for the posed for tracing needs, and the ITS archive Mandel Center’s Encyclopedia of Camps then grew as new records, both originals and and Ghettos. Periodically the Mandel Center

Magazine from 29/01/2020 54 Discussion publishes source volumes in the series “Do- partners’ websites. At least two additional cumenting Life and Destruction: Holocaust supplements are planned and will cover to- Sources in Context,” most recently Nazi Per- pics including the Nazi persecution of Roma secution and Postwar Repercussions: The and Sinti, and Displaced Persons. International Tracing Service Archive and Holocaust Research (2016) by Dr. Suzan- ne Brown-Fleming (Director, International Academic Programs). The Mandel Center also works closely with the Arolsen Archives and digital copyholders around the world on partner projects About the author to enable better access to the archive, to explore the archive’s potential for Digital Hu- Elizabeth Anthony, Ph.D., is the Director manities projects, and to promote its use of Visiting Scholar Programs at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jack, through cohosted seminars, workshops, and Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Ad- conferences. In addition, a new educational vanced Holocaust Studies. From 2013-2019, Anthony served as the Mandel Center’s initiative of the Mandel Center, the Arolsen International Tracing Service and Partner- Archives, and the London-based Wiener ships Program Manager and was responsible for the promotion of the scholarly use of the Library for the Study of the Holocaust and ITS Digital Archive, ITS-related academic Genocide (another of the seven copyholders programming and outreach, and partner programs with other institutions. She recei- of the ITS Digital Archive) seeks to provide ved her Ph.D. in history at Clark University resources for undergraduate classes study- in 2016. ing the Holocaust in the form of a primary source supplement series based on documentation from the Arolsen Archives. Each supplement includes an introductory essay on the dedicated topic and presents an as- sortment of original documents from the Arolsen Archives related to that theme. De- scriptions, translations (as necessary), and questions for pedagogical work are included, as well as a list of suggested reading and historical photographs from the collections of the USHMM and The Wiener Library. The first two supplements – Women under Nazi Persecution and The Camp System – are available for free download on each of the

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International Library Platform approaches, and experiences of archival pe- for Education About the dagogy and their transformation and adap- Holocaust tation to the library environment.

By Misko Stanisic In this context, the international platform represents a set of shared methodologies I believe that there is an unexplored and and goals as well as a sustainable, long- unutilized potential in libraries for teaching term process of coalition building between and learning about the Holocaust, particu- relevant stakeholders and experts with the larly in the new environment created by the aim of fostering a greater involvement of li- digital transformation of the culture of re- braries, library networks, and librarians in membrance. Consequently, we must open teaching and learning about the Holocaust. up the existing teacher-training infrastruc- The concept we propose aims to promote ture to other groups that can act as multi- teaching and learning about the Holocaust pliers, such as librarians and archivists, in in the information age by identifying and order to prepare them for a new active role utilizing new opportunities and potentials in education about the Holocaust that uti- for education about the Holocaust in the lizes their specific expertise, organizational evolving infrastructure of digital humani- structures, and facilities, as well as the Ho- ties and by creating educational strategies locaust-related material to which they have in the landscape of the digital reinvention access. of museums, libraries, and archives. At the The "International Library Platform for Edu- same time, this approach will contribute to cation About the Holocaust" project aims to shaping the future of the digital culture of present and promote a new strategy for en- remembrance. gaging libraries, library infrastructure, and Between December 2017 and December archives in education about the Holocaust. 2018, we arranged a series of various activi- Terraforming, our NGO from Novi Sad in ties in order to present and discuss the idea Serbia, developed the idea and presented it with stakeholders from different countries. to international partners and experts. The stakeholders included a wide range of During the first phase of the project, the practitioners, theoreticians, professionals, goal was to inspire and motivate important and experts in relevant fields: from librari- international stakeholders, institutions, and ans to teachers, from historians to archivists, experts. The next step was to initiate a colla- from experts in the field of education about borative platform of international resources the Holocaust to survivors, from policy ma- for Holocaust education centered on libra- kers in the fields of culture and education to rians, libraries, library networks, and libra- international centers for teacher training, ry resources. One of the main pillars of this from Jewish communities to Holocaust me- idea is constructed around methodologies, morial centers and museums.

Magazine from 29/01/2020 56 Discussion

The Arolsen Archives were one of the main final expert seminar titled “Librarians and partners in this process. They were involved archivists and the new international re- in several seminars for librarians and archi- sources for teaching and learning about the vists held in Belgrade and Novi Sad during Holocaust” that took place on 13th Decem- 2018 within the framework of the project. ber 2018 at the National Library of Serbia Their contribution consisted of introducing in Belgrade. At the seminar in Belgrade, we basic concepts of archival pedagogy and im- discussed 4 aspects of our proposition: 1. plementing workshops based on case stu- Unexplored and unexploited potentials of dies using the archival documents availab- libraries and librarians in teaching and lear- le in their holdings. Dr Akim Jah from the ning about the Holocaust; 2. How to engage Arolsen Archives Research and Education libraries and librarians in this field; 3. New Department explained that historical docu- perspectives and opportunities this proposi- ments do not always paint the whole picture tion could contribute at an international le- or provide a clear picture - most of the time vel; and finally, 4. How to put this idea into additional research is needed. However, for practice. Dr Akim Jah, this is a challenge rather than Beside the Arolsen Archives, the following a disadvantage for learning as learning hap- international partners participated in and pens when we make a productive effort in contributed to the project in various ways, order to understand and piece the story to- making this a truly joint effort: the Europea- gether for ourselves. na Foundation, the Anne Frank House, the In November 2019, the publication "Interna- Holocaust Memorial Centre of the Jews from tional Library Platform for Education About Macedonia, the National Library of Serbia, the Holocaust" was released. The aim of the Yad Vashem, errinern.at, Vienna University publication is not to offer all the answers. Library, the Humanity in Action Foundati- Our goal is to present and propose the idea on, the Historical Archive of the City of Novi that after successfully working in the field Sad, and the University Library of Belgrade. of education about the Holocaust together The project was funded by the International with libraries and library networks in Ser- Holocaust Remembrance Alliance IHRA, bia for several years, we strongly believe this the Anne Frank House, the Austrian Federal approach should be taken to international Ministry of Education, the National Fund of level. Of course, many questions and chal- the Republic of Austria for Victims of Nati- lenges still need to be addressed. The publi- onal Socialism, and the Ministry of Foreign cation resulted from project participants, ex- Affairs of the Republic of Serbia. perts, and relevant stakeholders exchanging The "International Library Platform for ideas and entering into discussions with one Education about the Holocaust" project was another during various project activities and awarded the annual Yehuda Bauer Grant by events. The most important of these was the the International Holocaust Remembran-

Magazine from 29/01/2020 57 Discussion ce Alliance IHRA. IHRA awards this honor annually to an outstanding project proposal submitted through IHRA’s grant program.

Terraforming is an independent non-governmental and non-profit organization from Novi Sad in Serbia committed to promoting and improving teaching and learning about the Holocaust and to combating antisemitism, antigypsyism, and other forms of xeno- phobia. More information on: www.terraforming.org

The publication titled "International Library Plat- form for Education about the Holocaust" is available at https://terraforming.org/publication-international-library-platform/

About the author

Misko Stanisic is co-founder and director of Terraforming NGO from Novi Sad/Serbia. He studied Law at the University of Sarajevo and pedagogy in Stockholm. He is a member of the Serbian Delegation to the Interna- tional Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), and member of the IHRA Working Group for Education.

Magazine from 29/01/2020 58 Information

Services Offered by the Arolsen To see an overview of the educational mate- Archives rials provided by the Arolsen Archives and access them for download, go to: https:// The Arolsen Archives provide a wide range arolsen-archives.org/en/learn-participate/ of different ways to access information and learning-with-documents/. digital copies from the archives and to learn more about the documents they hold. They The e-Guide, the online tool which provides also offer opportunities for professional de- explanatory information on the documents velopment, including workshops and semi- in the archive, can be found at: https://arol- nars on various topics. sen-archives.org/en/search-explore/additi- The Arolsen Archives regularly hold research onal-ressources/e-guide/. seminars which present their collections and Do you have any questions about our edu- the digital archive to various target groups cational offerings or would you like receive and in different places. They also run aca- regular updates on our latest events? If so, demic conferences and seminars, including please write to us at: education@arolsen- the winter school for educators titled “Nazi archives.org. Forced Labor – History and Aftermath”, which they organize every two years in partnership with the Nazi Forced Labor Docu- mentation Center in Berlin-Schöneweide. They also run workshops for multipliers and teachers. For up-to-date information and invitations to upcoming events, visit the website of the Arolsen Archives at: https:// arolsen-archives.org/en/news-events/. The website also includes information on how survivors, relatives of former persecutees, academics, educators, students, and other interested parties can submit an inquiry; the online inquiry form can be accessed directly here: https://arolsen-archives.org/ en/search-explore/inquiries/submit-inquiry/. A growing number of documents held by the Arolsen Archives are gradually being made available online. Free access to the online archive is available to all interested parties at: https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/ en/search/.

Magazine from 29/01/2020 59 The next Lag magazine will be published on 26 Febru- ary 2020 and will focus on comics and graphic novels.

I M P R E S S U M

Agentur für Bildung - Geschichte, Politik und Medien e.V. Dieffenbachstr.76 10967 Berlin http://www.lernen-aus-der-geschichte.de http://www.agentur-bildung.de

Projektkoordination/Coordinator Ingolf Seidel

Webredaktion/Editorial staff Akim Jah, Tanja Kleeh, Ingolf Seidel, Anne-Marie Wilm (Translation)

This magazine issue is supported by Arolsen Archives - International Center on Nazi Persecution.