With three exhibitions in Poland, Czech Republic and Germany, the zusammen.HALT project has come to a worthy conclusion. After two and a half years of historical-political educational work with teenagers and young adults about our shared communist history, the project partners in Gdańsk, Prague and Dresden have gained a lot of experience and results, which have now been presented to the public and prepared for future use. In the zusammen.HALT project, young people were able to meet contemporary witnesses, hear their stories and discover historical places. Some new methods were used, for example, workshops with role play, citizen journalism, mail-art and slam.
The core of the exhibition consists of a number of around 15 roll-ups on which the most important results can be seen. These roll-ups are available in three country versions with largely the same content: 1x for Germany, 1x for Poland, 1x for the Czech Republic. The texts on each version are written in their mother tongue and in English. These roll-ups can be borrowed from schools and other institutions after the end of the project and used for your own educational work.
A presentation of the exhibition took place in Gdańsk on 21st November 2023 at the European Solidarity Centre with presence of Ujana Sieber and Antje Friedrich, director and employee of the Bautzner Straße Dresden Memorial. On the sidelines of the visit, the two Dresden visitors were also received by Lech Wałęsa, the Polish ex-president and former chairman of the Solidarity trade union.
In Dresden the opening of the final exhibition took place on Wednesday, 13th December 2023 at the Bautzner Straße Dresden Memorial. The project partners from the Memorial and from Kultur Aktiv were pleased to meet with interested citizens and those involved in the project about an exciting program, which was moderated by Uljana Sieber, the director of the Memorial, and Marcus Oertel, chairman of Kultur Aktiv. The approximately 70 people present followed the greetings of State Secretary Dr. Gesine Mertens from the Saxon State Ministry of Justice and for Democracy, Europe and Gender Equality, Ms. Annekatrin Klepsch, Second Mayor and Deputy Mayor for Culture, Science and Tourism of the State Capital Dresden and Mr. Jörg Kubiessa, State Police President of the Free State of Saxony. This was followed by discussions with our international partners from the European Solidarity Centre (Gdańsk/PL) and from Post Bellum (Prague/CZ). The slammer Kaddi Cutz provided the appropriate verbal introduction and DJ Franzman the musical background. The visitors talked for a long time with each other and about the exhibition and the accompanying films with the contemporary witnesses, including Lech Wałęsa.
The presentation followed in Prague on 14th December 2023 in the auditorium of the “Gymnázium Paměti národa” run by our partner organization Post Bellum. The head of the school, Ms. Tereza Meinczingerová, welcomed the students as well as the guests from Germany and Poland. The film team from the European Solidarity Centre in Gdańsk presented the film about the youth exchange in June 2023. The students from Prague, who also took part in this action, reported to their classmates about the experiences and impressions they had gained during youth exchange. The highlight was the story by contemporary witness Heidi Bohley, which represents a very personal example of lived German-Czech togetherness and which greatly impressed those who were present.
Even after the end of the project, the fundamental questions remain relevant: Cohesion (in German: Zusammenhalt) – Where does the boundary of what we have in common begin? Where is the freedom of others restricted? And how can cohesion succeed today without shaking its foundations, such as plurality and individual freedom? These questions and the answers found during the project will continue to accompany our work in the future.
Contact
Marcus Oertel
marcus.oertel@kulturaktiv.org
The project “zusammen.Halt” is run by the Bautzner Straße Memorial and in cooperation with Kultur Aktiv. It is funded by the federal programme “Jugend erinnert” (Youth Remembers) to come to terms with the injustices of the GDR and will run until the end of 2023.