Activity Report 2024

The project fosters critical examination of discrimination and strengthens nationwide networks that promote fair, discrimination-sensitive reporting. Young people learn to use analog and digital media in a reflective manner and to use their own voice effectively. They are encouraged to contribute as actors with media competence and to develop sustainable journalistic formats.

The visual novel – an interactive, text-based computer game – is a new way for young people to access Max Mannheimer’s life story. In addition to narrating his personal experiences, it deals with the structures of National Socialist persecution and their international scope. This innovative, participatory educational medium is especially suitable for use in schools and at international youth encounters.

The project sheds light on an aspect of the Holocaust that is often forgotten: the “Holocaust by bullets.” Roughly one quarter of all European Jews were murdered not in concentration or extermination camps, but rather in mass executions not far from where they lived. “Holocaust by bullets” brings this knowledge to public awareness and keeps the victims’ memory alive.

Participants in this project examine the biography of the Czech composer and conductor Miloslav Kabeláč and the history of the German occupation of what was then Czechoslovakia. Kabeláč’s compositions address the National Socialist occupation from an artistic perspective and were an expression of cultural resistance against the Nazi regime. The project makes his works and the associated history of cultural resistance accessible to a wider public.

The project raises awareness of the National Socialist occupation of Greece – a history that is largely unknown in Germany – with special attention to forced labor and the extermination of Greece’s Jewish population. It educates target groups about the crimes and suffering endured and actively involves young people and the victims’ descendants, thus creating space for a joint critical examination of the past.

The project is dedicated to the songs of Roma in the are as of modern-day Serbia once occupied by the National Socialist regime, songs that gave voice to the people’s experiences of persecution and violence. This heritage is still passed down in the Roma community as an expression of local historical knowledge and transgenerational remembrance.

The goal is to raise public awareness of a forgotten chapter of National Socialist history: the use of soccer fields and sports grounds as sites of Nazi forced labor camps. A website featuring an interactive map documents these places and provides access to supplementary materials such as contemporary eyewitness reports and historical documents and photos. Educational offerings allow the subject to be explored in greater depth.

The project focuses on a hitherto largely unknown group of victims: people who were convicted of crimes, imprisoned, and executed under National Socialism. It documents the history of their persecution, taking the former prison in Wolfenbüttel as an example, and thus closes a gap in existing research on this topic.