Learning module “Europeanism of the KZ-Natzweiler memorial sites”

Posted on by

The didactic booklet “Im Lager wurde ich zum Europäer” (“In the Camp I Became a European”) – available in German and French language – is intended to encourage young people to reflect on the basis of Nazi history on the values of Europe – respect for human rights, democracy, reconciliation and peace.

The basic idea for the learning module was that “Europe” occurs twice in the area of the concentration camps in general and the Natzweiler concentration camp complex.

On the one hand, people from over 30 European nations were imprisoned in the camps. On the other hand, for many of them, the collective experience of extreme violence gave rise to a sense of commitment to a different Europe – a Europe of reconciliation, cooperation, containment of the arms industry and orientation towards human rights.
Quite a few survivors have become politically or socially active in the relevant fields.

Such peace and reconciliation work also and especially took place in the memorial sites. In this way, former places of horror could become places of (remembrance) culture.

Marie Koehn (Freiburg) has produced a booklet of materials on these aspects under the title “Im Lager wurde ich zum Europäer”. (“In the camps i became an European”) This was translated into French in a further sub-project by students of the German-French high school in Freiburg under the supervision of their teacher Magali Hack. The materials are available for download on the website www.natzweiler.eu.