Activity Report 2021, Education for Tomorrow, Reporting Office antigypsyism, Forced Labor 1939-1945, Asking the Pope for Help |
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EDITION 06/2022
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"Numerous people went to Germany at that time, there were many... One from every other house had to go there," recalls Anna P., a Ukrainian, recalling her time as a forced laborer. Her story is one of forty that the University Library of Freie Universität Berlin and the EVZ Foundation are currently making available to the public.
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In this newsletter, Kateryna Kobchenko talks more in "Three questions for..." about the audio and video interviews with former forced laborers from Western Ukraine and about why this sub-collection of the interview archive "Forced Labor 1939-1945" – is so special. This is also relevant against the background of the war of aggression against Ukraine, although not only in that context.
How little the history of Ukraine and other countries in Eastern Europe, marked by attacks and occupation, is known in this country is demonstrated by a statistic from the forthcoming, fifth Multidimensional Remembrance Monitor (MEMO) of Bielefeld University and funded by the EVZ Foundation: 58.5% of respondents have never visited a World War II memorial site outside Germany. It is up to us to find these blind spots in our culture of remembrance and to promote a lively and activating memory.
We look forward to exploring new ways of remembering with you. Are you up for it?
Dr. Andrea Despot CEO of the EVZ Foundation
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PUBLICATIONS
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The 2021 activity report is out now!
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247 projects, including 26 exhibitions, 36 workshops as well as 15 apps and games – the EVZ Foundation looks back on the past year with this gratifying balance. In addition to current projects, the recently published activity report also documents how the Foundation has been implementing the Agenda for the Future since the summer of 2021 – with the NS Injustice Education Agenda among other things: We celebrate 1,700 years of Jewish life in Germany; we celebrate nine awards and nominations for our projects and partners and review twenty years of the Foundation's history with an anniversary website.
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Read now |
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NEW DIRECTOR DUO
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Jakob Meyer is the new Director at the EVZ Foundation
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From July 1, 2022, Jakob Meyer and Dr. Andrea Despot, Chief Executive Officer, form the new management duo of the EVZ Foundation. The international Board of Trustees elected the historian and science manager at its meeting in mid-May. Jakob Meyer will contribute many years of experience in the administrative management of scientific organizations, including the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) and the Leibniz Association. In May 2022, Dr. Petra Follmar-Otto, the previous Director, took over as head of the Equal Opportunities Department at the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ).
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Go to press release
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EVZ FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
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9 short-term scholarships awarded, 3 yet to be awarded!
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Activists at risk: The EVZ Fellowship Program is aimed at the EVZ Foundation project partners from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia; it is experiencing active demand. Nine EVZ fellows were awarded a three-month scholarship each and were accepted by organizations in Germany, Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, Lithuania, and England. In their new places of residence, they continue their commitment to their countries of origin outside their home countries. During the summer, the Foundation will present some of these activists on its social media channels. Three short-term scholarships are currently still available.
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Apply now
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RECORDING OF THE ONLINE SYMPOSIUM
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Education for Tomorrow – Remember, Participate, Engage |
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The focus of the funding programs supported by the Federal Foreign Office, MEET UP! Youth for Partnership and YOUNG PEOPLE remember is: Participation and empowerment of young people, combating antisemitism, antigypsyism and racism, and enabling them to engage in a critical examination of history by historical learning. In this way, the EVZ Foundation supports players in international educational work throughout Europe in the process of finding answers to the major challenges of the present time; it has also brought them together for this purpose in an online symposium at the end of June. Conversations with experts that took place during the digital symposium are now online.
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Watch conversations |
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LOCAL.HISTORY |
A new call for applications in the funding program
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The funding program local.history supports projects which deal with historical places, people or families, events, companies, and buildings from the time of National Socialism by means of local references. The focus is on educational aspects as well as the participation of the local population. The current call for applications is aimed at project sponsors from Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Ukraine. The deadline for submissions is September 25, 2022.
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View tender |
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HISTORY EDUCATION ONLINE
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Handout for digital work at memorial sites
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Pandemic-related lockdowns have posed significant challenges for museums and memorials: How can the critical examination of National Socialism and its crimes be successful in online formats? How can content, experiences and emotions also be made understandable in a virtual space? We have found: History education online can be multifaceted and also sustainable – but it requires new methods, tools and adaptations of content. A handout developed by Action Reconciliation Service for Peace [Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste e.V.] presents various practical examples. The EVZ Foundation funds the project within the framework of the YOUNG PEOPLE remember program of the Federal Foreign Office. |
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Find the handout |
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BRIEF REVIEW OF THE CONFERENCE
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Blickwinkel 2022: Objectively understood, subjectively affected
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The 13th "Blickwinkel [Perspectives]" conference in mid-June – organized by the Anne Frank Educational Center in Leipzig – focused on the relationship between categories and perception in the case of antisemitism and racism. Already in the opening round with Uffa Jensen and Serhat Karakayali, moderated by Andrea Despot, it was clear that there has been an increasing social need for clear and scientifically based "regulations" in recent years. Often, however, as became clear in the course of the conference, these are not possible. Instead, it is important to "accept" differences and ambivalences and to open up spaces for discourse. A paradigm shift that is taking place also became visible: In debates and scientific studies, the subjective perception of those affected by antisemitism and racism is increasingly being taken into account.
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Learn more |
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SINTI & ROMA IN RHINELAND-PALATINATE
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First reporting office for antigypsyism initiated
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The Rhineland-Palatinate Regional Association of German Sinti and Roma opened the first regional reporting and information unit for antigypsyism (MIA-RLP) in Rhineland-Palatinate on June 14, 2022. Any people affected as well as witnesses can now report incidents via an online form and receive personal advice. With the help of the reporting unit as well as funding provided by the EVZ Foundation, the extent and development of antigypsyism in Rhineland-Palatinate can be systematically recorded and documented for the first time.
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Learn more about the platform |
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FIRST NETWORK MEETING |
Kick-off for 24 Vidnova Fellows in Berlin
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Getting to know each other, exchanging experiences and reorientation – this is what Commit by MitOst invited the activists who fled from Ukraine to Berlin for at the start of July. The Vidnova scholarship, initiated by the EVZ Foundation, allows them to continue their work in exile for one year. The scholarship holders cooperate with self-organizations, advice centers and associations in various European countries. Commit by MitOst is now looking for more host organizations for scholarship holders.
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Join now |
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What thoughts and feelings shaped the everyday lives of Jewish citizens in Cologne during the period of National Socialism? On the anniversary of the deportation of the Jewish Schönenberg family on June 15, 1942 a large-scale projection by the NS-Documentation Center of the City of Cologne took place at their former place of residence in Cologne: Stories and feelings told by residents brought the project organizers to life. The projection is a first partial result of a project funded by the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) and the EVZ Foundation within the project NS Injustice Education Agenda. By the end of 2022, a large web portal with innovative VR visualizations of communication in the Holocaust will be developed, exemplified by communication spaces as well as life and experience worlds of the Schönenberg family.
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Learn more about the Schönenberg family and other projections
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Dr. Kateryna Kobchenko
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Dr. Kateryna Kobchenko, member of staff working on the indexing of interviews with Western Ukrainian forced laborers as a sub-collection of the online archive "Forced Labor 1939-1945" at Freie Universität Berlin
Ms. Kobchenko, what is special about the sub-collection? The interviews in the collection reflect the particular experience of Western Ukrainian NS forced laborers. The area around Lviv, where the interviews were conducted, belonged to Poland during the period between the wars; and so the interviewees were Polish citizens before 1939. As a result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, Western Ukraine came under Soviet occupation in the years 1939 to 1941. This led to a strengthening of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, as well as to an initially positive attitude of the population in relation to the German occupation. This attitude quickly changed, not least because of the forced recruitment for work in Germany. Even though the forced laborers from Western Ukraine were not counted among the "Ostarbeiter [Eastern workers]" in the hierarchy of the National Socialist system and were somewhat better off than them.
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Continue reading
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ZEIT ONLINE
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And the church is moving after all: A guest article by Hubert Wolf
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In a guest article for Zeit Online, Hubert Wolf – professor of Medieval and Modern Church History at the University of Münster and director of the Asking the Pope for Help project – writes about a surprising decision on the part of the Vatican: "A sensation," he calls the fact that on June 23, 2022, the archives of the papal Secretariat of State made publicly available its Ebrei series, including several thousand letters of petition to the Vatican from persecuted Jews. For the project funded by the EVZ Foundation, too, this development is an "immense reduction in workload"; nevertheless, there remains "a lot of work for research."
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Contribution for Z+
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NEUES DEUTSCHLAND
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Aid Network Ukraine: Practical support for survivors and former forced laborers
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Neues Deutschland reports on the often precarious situation of survivors of National Socialism as a result of the Russian war of aggression, which the newly founded Ukraine Aid Network is countering: "Many former concentration camp prisoners and forced laborers do not have a bank account.... The pension has paid to them in cash until now. Due to the war, since February 24, it has often been a question of if and when the pension will even arrive. Accessing cash wasn't easy in the first weeks of the war, either." This makes support from abroad all the more important, among other things through the aid network funded by the EVZ Foundation.
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Read the article
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SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG
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Roma fleeing Ukraine: "I would have expected more from Munich"
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Sinti and Roma, the second-largest victim group of National Socialist persecution, are still experiencing discrimination around the world. The EVZ Foundation therefore supports self-organizations and the equal participation of Roma and Sinti in Germany in a special funding program. In the context of the war of aggression against Ukraine, the importance of this work is demonstrated again and again. Mehmet Daimagüler, the newly appointed Federal Government Officer against Antigypsyism in May 2022, talks to Süddeutsche Zeitung about the city of Munich's treatment of refugees from Ukraine who belong to the Roma community.
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Learn more
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JULY 6, BERLIN
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Exhibition Opening "The End of Contemporary Witnessing?" at the New Synagogue Berlin
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Following its presentation at the NS Documentation Center in Munich and the Jewish Museum in Augsburg Swabia, the touring exhibition "The End of Contemporary Witnessing?" will also be visiting Berlin from July 7, 2022 to January 8, 2023. The exhibition of the Jewish Museum Hohenems and the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial, in cooperation with the foundation "New Synagogue Berlin", presents a unique examination of interviews with historical eyewitnesses.
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Learn more
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SEPTEMBER 21 - 25, TBILISI
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Save the Date: MEET UP! Youth for Partnership Youth Conference "Power of Youth!"
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The Youth Conference for young active people from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Germany, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine will take place in Tbilisi, Georgia from September 21 to 25. Workshops, discussions, as well as creative formats are planned, providing a place for exchange, inspiration and networking for committed activists and young experts. More information about the program and the start of the application process will be published in mid-July.
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About the conference
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SEPTEMBER 29, LEIPZIG
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EVZ Conversations! at the German Foundation Day 2022
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How can the voice of Ukrainian civil society be heard in the current war of aggression? For this purpose, the EVZ Foundation is arranging a conversation with the country's activists, continuing its series started in May 2022. In addition, the Foundation is represented on three other panels at the largest foundation congress in Europe – on work in Eastern Europe, on capital investment and on the sustainable handling of asset issues.
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Calendar of events
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NEWSLETTER 07/2022
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Our next edition will be published at the beginning of September!
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Our newsletter will be taking a summer break in August. We will be back with the next edition on the Education Agenda NS-Injustice at the beginning of September: We report on projects that have already started and give an outlook on new projects – among other things, you can read about special challenges for successful youth projects in memory work.
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All editions at a glance
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Stiftung Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft Friedrichstraße 200 10117 Berlin, Germany T +49 (30) 25 92 97-0 F +49 (30) 25 92 97-11 Website |
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Responsible: Dr. Andrea Despot
Editorial: Hanna Komornitzyk, Katrin Kowark, Sophie Ziegler
Image credits: Amélie Losier/Raum11, Bildungsstätte Anne Frank, Martin Neuhof/ Jasmin Zwick/ Florian Manhardt, Dirk Lukaßen, Kateryna Kobchenko (private)
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The editorial team welcomes your opinion on the newsletter and will be happy to answer any questions. We also help with any issues you might encounter: newsletter@stiftung-evz.de
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© Stiftung Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft, 2022 |
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