edums.eu - Developing Education at Memorial Sites

The project's aim is to inquire the educational work at memorial sites, as well as develop theoretical concepts and practical methods for this work. The expected results will be in the form of new models for the educational work at memorial sites. 

A group of external experts together with the internal experts – i.e. the working groups and the Mauthausen educational team – create the project's Think Tank, which will meet for five workshops during the project's duration. Together the participants will work on the following themes:

• Narrative options for the structure of the tour
• Models and examples for interactive sequences 
• Research and development of source materials
• Concepts and structures for development and support of educational staff 
• Evaluating the educational work

These models will be implemented in the work the Mauthausen Memorial. The Dachau Memorial, a participant in the project, wil consider the integration of the project's models. Through the project's website, as well as through publishing and presenting the project's results, we hope to disseminate the models developed in the educarional work of all interested memorial sites. 

The results of the project will be documented on this website and published in a book, which will be released in fall 2014.

The methodological structure of the project is the working group. This structure allows a small number of participants to combine their abilities through intensive exchange. The project has two main environments in which the working group structure is used:

• The external experts and members of the Mauthausen educational team. During the workshops the external experts review the concepts developed by the working groups. Additionally the external experts present their respective expertise, e.g. the status of research on violence. 
• The working groups, consisting of Mauthausen Memorial guides, develop theoretical concepts and practical models for the educational work on the project's five themes. Their results are shared with the other project's participants prior to each Workshop, and then presented and discussed during the Workshop.  

The Think Tank Workshops, adjourning five times within the project's duration, enable the exchange among these different working groups. This combines the practical experience of the guides from their educational work at the Mauthausen Memorial with the professional and academic expertise of the external experts.

The average time budgeted at a memorial site (ca. two hours), combined with the Mauthausen Memorial's size and its complex history allows for an average of some ten minutes for each of the tour's stations, or sequences. This demands an exceptionally well structured methodology.

The educational challenge is in creating a setting which enables a discussion within the group on the meaning of the historical facts for us, the individuals standing today at this site. Standing with a group at one of the guided tour's stations is intended to unfold a compact workshop of some ten minutes. The use of source materials, the narrating of a context, the observation of the site and the posing of questions are the structural elements of such a workshop, such an interactive sequence.

Read more: Full Article

Historical source material plays an important role in narrating history. In order to help the visitor understand the historical reality source materials, texts or photographs are used throughout the guided tour. The texts are personal accounts, describing a scene or a situation in or around the concentration camp which the author witnessed. In so doing the author opens a small window into the past, a snapshot, enabling us to view the memorial's grounds with different eyes. A similar role is played by, e.g., an aerial photo taken by ally planes in March 1945.

Having the historical source in one's hands reduces the participants' dependence on the guide as a source of knowledge and understanding. Historical material can be and should be interpreted. Visitors' unmediated ownership of a historical source puts him/her in a better position to think independently and negotiate its interpretation and meaning. Thus having it at ones disposal supports individual contending and interpretation of source material and through it interpreting history (and thus responsibility and empowerment of the individual participating).

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The educational work at memorial sites lacks norms and standardization. Whereas a school teacher, or a tourist guide, has to receive standardized formal education, guides at memorial sites do not. In the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights publication Human rights education at Holocaust memorial sites across the European Union: An overview of practices, based on an extensive research of memorials across Europe, the following statement appears (page 12):

 "…the success of visits to memorial sites and museums (is) linked primarily to the quality of the educational approach and the competence of the staff of the particular institution". 

The support for guides needs to address questions such as how do we learn from history? How do we combine between history and the dilemmas and needs of society today? How can we learn from atrocities and draw positive values out of them? How can we learn from traumatic events and draw positive values from them? How can we engender civic education through a visit to a memorial site? How can we teach educational staff to empower their students? What sorts of structures engender interaction among participants? What sort of structures engender reflection, and how can they be implemented?

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Evaluating the impact of education is a complex matter. Assessing the level of knowledge, e.g. when did WW II begin, is relatively simple. Evaluating the integration of knowledge and the meanings students draw from information is much more difficult to assess.

Better insight into the experience of visitors and the impact the visit did or did not have on them is needed. The current project thus aims to develop systematic evaluation, which will enable memorials to get a better insight into the experiences of visitors.

The objective is to develop a simple and non-expensive tool relatively easy to implement, so that it may be applied by the memorial staff with a relatively humble investment.

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Paul Salmons

• Impact of IOE's Centre for Holocaust Education.pdf
• Universal Meaning or Historical Understanding.pdf

Christian Staffa

• Holocaust Memorial Berlin.pdf

Pedagogical Concept

• The pedagogical concept has been developed by Yariv Lapid, Christian Angerer and Maria Ecker. It addresses the need for an integration of the visitors' perspectives into the memorial site`s guided tour.
• Paedagogisches Konzept.pdf [German]

Interactive Methodology 

• In order to accomplish the engagement of the visitor in deciphering both history and topography of the site, the Mauthausen educational team has been developing a participatory, interactive methodology. Its aim is to create the appropriate setting for an exchange on the meaning of the events, and thus empower members of society to express their views and negotiate meanings.
• Einfuerung Interaktive Methodologie.pdf [German]

Strassler presentation

• The latest update on the theoretical and conceptual level is further elaborating the idea of combining education at Memorial sites and civic education. Presented by Yariv Lapid at a conference at Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University in April 2013, it offers thoughts on the status and roles of memorial sites and presents the educational experiences at the Mauthausen Memorial.
• Strassler presentation.pdf

European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)

• Discover the past for the future – The role of historical sites and museums in Holocaust education and human rights education in the EU
• Human rights education at Holocaust memorial sites across the European Union: An overview of practices

The project report depicts the different topics the project dealt with, as well as the process itself, through the voices of the participants. Thoughts, questions and reflections of a visitor group – students and their teacher – portray the experience before, during and after a visit at the memorial site. The annex provides articles describing the structure of a guided tour, the pedagogical fundamentals of the work in Mauthausen and examples of concrete tour models developed in the project. Information on the history of the concentration camp and the memorial has also been included.

• Download project report [EN, pdf]

The Link to all videos recorded during the project on Vimeo.com: -Link