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Anne Frank – A History for Today
TransBorders Czech Republic – Austria 2010-11
1. Introduction
“transBorders” Czech Republic – Austria” is an interactive project that’s going to take place in the Czech Republic and in Austria. It is designed for young people between 15 and 18 years old and focuses on the three aspects of exhibition, film and discussion.
The main focus of this project is to find possible solutions to conflicts in a democratic and diverse society. With the help of a bilingual exhibition and the diary and films to Anne Frank’s story, young people are encouraged to learn from history and reflect on the consequences of discrimination, anti-Semitism, persecution and the loss of rights, all the while considering real historical examples.
Through different workshops (guide training peer2peer, film production, public debates, excursions to memorial places, public relations, ..) we want to actively involve young people and create contexts that clarify why the declaration of human rights was founded as a direct reaction to the Second World War and the holocaust. The project “transBorders” will take place from March 2010 until October 2011 in the border regions of Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Vienna and the Czech Republic. Experiences: School & youth projects in Austria and Slovenia
In January 2002 the Anne Frank Verein and the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam
started their cooperational youth project “Anne Frank – A History for Today” in Easttyrol, Carinthia, Salzburg and Vorarlberg. The project was continued until 2007 in Tyrol, Burgenland, Upper Austria and Vienna. Based on the experiences gained in these projects, new projects have been set up: “Vienna Mosaic”, “Free2Choose in Austria 06-07” that took place in four counties, and “Linz Mosaic 08”. In 2006 the
Anne Frank Verein started its first project that went across borders: “Crossing Borders
Slovenia-Austria”. This project involves Carinthia, Styria and Slovenia and is going to go on until 2010. Additionally there were the “Alpine Peace Crossing Italy-Austria 08” , a photo contest for young people and the Anne Frank webguide.
Until the end of June 2009 more than 70 schools and youth centers actively took part in the many different projects. The main part of the project was passed on by the teenagers themselves through the constantly used “peer2peer” concept.
2 Each participating school was provided with the travelling exhibition “Anne Frank – A History for Today” for 2-3 weeks. In addition, each school received pedagogical materials that have been developed by the Anne Frank House. Through several different workshops and debates the participants were able to be involved in the development of the respective project.
“transBorders Czech Republic – Austria 2010-2011” is going to be built up on these experiences.
Just like all former projects, “transBorders” also wants to encourage young people to think critically and to show civil courage. The project’s aim is to reinforce young people to learn from history and to develop their own opinions about themes such as human rights, racism, anti-Semitism and tolerance. What is most important to us is to show that the declaration of human rights was a direct response to the Second World War and the holocaust. Anne Frank’s story is especially suitable for linking these two subjects. Always considering their own social environment, young people are being offered several opportunities to express their opinion independently. A special aim of this project is to reach all teenagers, not just those in higher education institutions. This will be achieved through strong cooperation with youth centers and local youth events.
Target groups:
1. General public in both countries: Visitors of the Anne Frank exhibition, visitors of the “Free2choose” debates, people who found out about the project in the media.
2. Young people from 15 to 18 years old – a part of this group will be actively involved in the project as for example by being peer guides, organising public debates and developing the concept of the new free2choose film clips. Aims:
1. To inform a wide audience about the history of the holocaust and the Second World War and to thus enable them to reflect on the meaning of history in the current problems of society.
2. To enable people to publicly reflect on dilemmas concerning laws.
3. To encourage the exchange between young people from the border regions of the Czech Republic and Austria who have been educated according to the project’s aims. This international exchange seeks to enhance the
understanding about similarities and differences of the two countries’ view of history, the knowledge of current forms of racism, anti-Semitism and
discrimination and the exchange of possible solutions for fighting these phenomena.
2. Detailed project description 2.1 Planned activities
3 1. Presentation of the travelling exhibition “Anne Frank – A History for Today” in 16
schools and selected youth centers, eight in Austria and eight in the Czech Republic (four presentations per semester).
2. Setting up of the exhibition, logistics and coordination of transport – together with young people
3. Seminar for peer guides (participants are then responsible for guiding other people through the exhibition)
Workshop details: 2 days, +/- 30 participants, 1x per semester, Austria & Czech Republic taking turns hosting the seminar
4. Film production workshop “Free2choose” – young people learn how to produce F2C films independently
Workshop details: 2x2 days – beginning/end of semester, +/- 18 participants 2 workshops, alternating AUT/CZ
5. Discussion workshops about the “Free2Choose” video clips (2-3 school
periods) & public debates on human rights conflicts regarding the produced video clips
Workshop details: 2h/12x over 3 semesters, alternating AUT/CZ, max. 20 participants 6. Common excursions to memorial places (i.e. Theresienstadt, Mauthausen,
Ebensee) with young people from both countries Details: 2 x 3 days, max. 25 participants
7. Workshop on public relations: Young people take care of public relations, contact with media, organize a press conference, 1-day workshop with PR-professionals
Workshop details: 3 x 1 day, 12 participants, alternating AUT/CZ
8. Frame programme (school activities, opening programme, exchange activities, events, ..)
9. www.annefrank.at: Online information and suggestions for students and teachers for creating workshops and frame programme, constant project documentation
10.Pedagogical material for peer guides
11.Pedagogical material for teachers (teacher trainings?)
12.Email newsgroup for actively participating students, facebook, blogs and skype conferences (exchange of experiences and ideas)
13.Feedback seminar/ intercultural festival/ “come-together” conference
14.Guiding of peers and other people through exhibition in first and second block
1. Tour of the Anne Frank exhibition
One of the two pillars of this project is the travelling exhibition “Anne Frank – A History for Today” that links to Anne Frank’s life and her well-known diary.
Her experiences and stories are a good introduction to information about the historical and societal happenings of her time. History can be perceived in a
4 completely different way when told through the experience of an individual. Anne Frank thus becomes someone that young people can identify with.
The exhibition is designed to make visitors curious. Through different means young people are told her story: quotes from her diary, pictures, accompanying texts, excerpts from documents and personal experiences from survivors – thus, not only Anne Frank gets a chance to speak but also helpers, survivors, her best friend Hannah Goslar and her father Otto Frank enable the visitor to get a feeling for all those people’s experiences.
Young visitors seeing matters from these people’s perspectives, will link historical facts and past events to real experiences, which enhances their understanding.
The exhibition aims to inspire people to reflect on tolerance, human rights, democracy and the situation of (discriminated or persecuted) minorities in several ways, rather than a passive visit. It wants to sensibilize, not teach. This aim is based on a diverse pedagogical concept that was developed by the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and already used in several countries.
Immersion panels
Four to five extra panels (covered with fabric) enable schools/ youth centers to deepen the exhibition. Therefore, young people can choose their own pictures (i.e. from the internet), laminate them and integrate them in the exhibition. Due to this system, recent happenings from their own surroundings can also be linked to the contents of the exhibition. In an ideal case, those 4- immersion panels reflect the topics of the Free2Choose workshop.
2. Setting up of exhibition
Before the exhibition opening, the exhibition is built up with the help of young people. These volunteers can relate to the exhibition in a much stronger way.
Thanks to this aspect, the number of actively involved people is higher, and these volunteers are also encouraged to motivate their relatives and friends to visit the exhibition that they helped build up.
5 A two-day seminar prepares future peer guides for their task. For each new semester people from both, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and the Anne Frank organization in Vienna get together to inform the guides-to-be about the historical background, show and introduce them to the exhibition and practice the dealing with groups. Because the number of participants is limited, only seven teenagers per location can take part (28 in total).
For years the experiences we have made with young people guiding other people through the exhibition have been positive. It’s no “expert” who stands in front of the group, age difference is often very small. The project’s motto “peer2peer” and quite simply dialogue itself become the central part of guiding and enable both sides to gain knowledge and experience. The exhibition offers the historical background and space for reflection on the different themes. For the peer guides themselves, the more responsibility for parts of the project often has an impact.
But guiding is not only a dialogue-based tour through the exhibition – it also involves the screening of a film and reflecting conversation with the group about everything that they found out.
Workshop details: 2 days, +/- 25 participants, 1x per semester, alternating in Austria and Czech Republic
4. Film workshop Free2Choose & human rights workshop
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Free2choose
Die Grenzen der Freiheit
Free2Choose is an interactive film project that
is based on producing & showing film clips about individual basic rights, especially freedom rights.
Where is the border to freedom rights and
because of which criteria, without endangering the
basic principle of a democratic state?
The goal of this Free2Choose & human
rights workshop is to give participants the
opportunity to create their own film clips
independently and under the supervision of professionals. The workshop begins with a 5-hour workshop on human rights that should take place in a multimedia room for at least 25 teenagers from Austria & the Czech Republic. In the course of the workshop, the participants are introduced to the declaration of human rights, their development and their implementation since 1948.
In the introduction, the workshop leader starts by explaining the purpose of the human rights workshop. The participants have to understand the concept of the declaration before they can go on to independently creating their own Free2Choose films and discussing the issues with other young people.
The Free2Choose film workshop is done directly after the human rights workshop. With the knowledge about the declaration of human rights the participants can begin to work on their own film clips. Before starting with the actual production, however, they are shown a number of already produced Free2Choose clips.
The whole workshop lasts about 2x2 days and is done by 2 – 3 workshop leaders for 25 teenagers from Austria and the Czech Republic once per semester. The teams working on one film clip will be mixed with teenagers from both, Austria and the Czech Republic, and are also going to be contacted and advised frequently via the internet by the workshop leaders. After each team is done producing their film clip, they can go on to present it at a public screening and debate.
Workshop details: 2x2 days (1x in Austria, 1x in the Czech Republic), +/- 25 participants
2 workshops, including permanent online-coaching and feedback by the workshop leaders between the workshops
7 5. The debate – workshop “Free2Choose”
Every place the Anne Frank exhibition is shown in, is also going to host the “Free2Choose”-workshop. With the use of short film clips, Austrian and Czech teenagers are able to discuss dilemmas that have to do with laws for freedom of opinion, freedom of religion and freedom of privacy. Each debate is going to be moderated.
The workshop participants are going to be selected by the schools/youth organizations that take part in the project. It is of high importance that the debates are accessible for a wide public which is why it would be desirable to have the debates at a location that is accessible for everyone. Free2Choose debates should also be offered at other local youth events. In order to gain publicity, the local media should be informed about these debates.
Workshop details: 2-3h, +/- 25 participants
12 workshops, + several public debates
6. Excursions to memorial places in the Czech Republic and Austria
In cooperation with the organization Gedenkdienst, some excursions to holocaust memorial places are planned (i.e. Terezín, Mauthausen). During 2-day long seminars current human rights themes are going to be linked to the holocaust and National Socialism. Our experience shows that the personal confrontation with these places leads to a very strong reflection among the teenagers. We want to create a frame in which people can reflect on exclusion and racism and discuss connections between historical facts and recent events in Austria and the Czech Republic. These seminars also serve as an opportunity for the young people to get to know each other and even to build up border-crossing friendships that exceed the project period. Additionally, young people should be motivated to think about potential future projects.
In Gedenkdienst we have found an ideal partner for the common execution of excursions. This organization has been working in this field for 15 years and has high competence in excursions to memorial places as well as many valuable contacts to other memorial places.
Workshop details: 2 programme days, +/- 25 participants
8 With the help of a one-day PR/ media workshop, the participants gain the relevant basic knowledge of public relations work, enabling them to then use this knowledge in order to put their project further into the center of attention, to attract more visitors for the exhibition and to ensure the debates are known of in public.
Workshop details: 3 x 1 day, +/- 12 participants, including permanent coaching
8. Frame programme (additional activities)
The teenagers, together with their supervisors, develop a fitting frame programme to the exhibition. The extent of this programme depends strongly on the teenagers’ and coordinators’ motivations. There are several possibilities:
- Theatre performances (related themes)
- Eye witness talks (survivors of the holocaust, maybe even from local region)
- Inviting those who were students at this school during World War II - Students organizing a poetry evening with poems on i.e.
tolerance/intolerance - film festival
- Contentwise relevant city tour by and for teenagers - Excursions
- Local research for historical traces and documentation of it, creation of one of the extra panels with found information
- Organization of a debate that links to the themes of the exhibition - Setting up of internet platform about other projects about
holocaust/human rights/tolerance/.. , dividing students into different groups: press, publicity, internet,…
- Musical programme for the opening
- Inviting a street worker (i.e. civil courage workshop)
The number of participants for the frame programme is indefinite. How many teenagers take part actively and passively is something that ever cooperation partner has to decide for themselves.
9. Website www.annefrank.nl and www.annefrank.at
These two websites contain information about the project and the ideas behind it for teenagers, teachers, parents and outsiders. It is also the right place to find suggestions for the frame programme or workshops and to share experiences, reports and pictures. There are also going to be links to other interesting websites and contact data to the Anne Frank House.
9 Each peer guide gets one preparation package for the guide seminar:
- 1 exhibition catalogue “Anne Frank – A History for Today” (German or Czech)
- 1 guide booklet for peer guides (folder)
The material is going to give background information on the exhibition and introduce tips for peer-guiding.
11.Pedagogical material for teachers and supervisors
The package for teachers is sent to each school before the start of the project - Catalogues for during classes
- Anne Frank newspapers for during classes – themes: tolerance, fascism, freedom of speech, neo-nazis, discrimination, …
- Video documentation from the Anne Frank House: “The short life of Anne Frank”, “Eye witnesses”
- CD-Rom “Anne Frank House – A museum with history” that contains a virtual tour of the house
- DVD “Crossing borders” – films that go with the workshop - Webpage “teaching to make a difference” www.teachers.nl ,
containing model classes for the exhibition
12.Email Newsgroup
For the duration of the project there’s going to be a “newsgroup” in which the teenagers can exchange their experiences, ideas and concepts. Further updates will also be organized trough Facebook, Twitter and Blogs. Those who have not yet started their “job” as a guide or filmclipproducer can get tips from the others. However, it also contains space for discussions and content-related questions. Co-workers of the Anne Frank House & Anne Frank organization and local project partners will be members of the newsgroup, thus enabling contact that goes on even after the project ends. Feedback and small conference “calls” are regularly held through skype conferences.
13.Feedback seminar & intercultural festival
In this seminar, all 25 participants will meet each other again and they can discuss and compare their experiences in real life. The peer guides have the opportunity to bring in suggestions for the second block of the project and can help decide if they, themselves, want to be a part of the setting-up of the second block.
Once per year there is an intercultural festival with Free2Choose debates to finish the project:
10 Common youth debates in Vienna – Prague
Teenagers are taking part at public Free2Choose debates in Vienna and Prague. The debate is going to be one of the highlights of the events.
Intercultural festival
Not only the peer guides but also all other teenagers, teachers, local project partners and those who were actively involved in the project are invited to the intercultural festival at the end of the project. In the center of this border-crossing gathering is not only intercultural exchange but also the introduction to cultural traditions and music. Youth theater and music that seek to interpret traditions in a contemporary way are considered most important and suitable. Local artists should be won for the festival, as well.
14.Further tasks for peers
At least three chosen teenagers who have proven to be particularly interested or to possess special skills in educating their peers are given the opportunity to play a bigger role in the second block of the project. The selected peers can actively be a part of seminars and workshops and thus support the project initiators.
Initiators/ contact: Verein Anne Frank Siebensterngasse 19/6 1070 Wien
Mag. Peter Hörburger Aaron Peterer
E-Mail: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
Tel.: +43-1-526345711 +43-699-11205567 Website: www.annefrank.at
Czech Partner/contact:
People in Need / Clovek v tísni Sokolská 22, 120 00 Praha 2
www.peopleinneed.cz www.clovekvtisni.cz
11 E-Mail: [email protected]
