A report from the FSJ volunteers
In May, our colleague Magdalena, whose responsibilities include organising international study programmes and youth encounters, had some exciting news for us: a new project would take place in mid-June, the German-Czech youth encounter with young people aged 15-19. A 6-day programme, half of which would take place in Dachau and half in Terezín. The group was to be at the Max Mannheimer House from Tuesday evening to Friday morning for a programme and we were both scheduled to be part of the programme during this time. Of course, we did not turn down this offer!
After the interview with Mr Feierabend and Mr Kubík
- To be able to imagine this in more detail, you need to understand how everything worked in practice. Our tasks were initially to prepare and later to carry out the programme as responsible team leaders in the seminar room and at the memorial sites in German.
We each had a group of around 20 participants, 50-50 of whom were German and Czech young people. We were supported by two experienced freelancers who both speak fluent Czech and interpreted consecutively in the seminar room. Wow, that can make you a bit dizzy. Of course, one of the highlights for us was to see how the young people approached each other and how contact was established between the nationalities, not just within the groups. We received particularly good feedback afterwards for the visit to the Hebertshausen memorial site. At this point, we had already been to the concentration camp memorial site and it was interesting for many participants to compare the designs and forms of remembrance. After the Dachau part of the programme came to an end for us on Thursday, the group visited the Nazi Documentation Centre in Munich on Friday and then set off for the Theresienstadt memorial. The content of the programme came full circle there, as we worked in Dachau with sources relating to Miroslav Kubik and Vladimir Feierabend, two Czech contemporary witnesses who the participants were able to meet on Sunday.
Group work in Terezín
We would like to thank you for this great opportunity to work with a bi-national group and the enriching chance to discover new perspectives on our shared history. These experiences will certainly serve us well at this year’s International Youth Meeting Dachau.
The youth exchange was funded by the German-Czech Future Fund and TANDEM
