Teacher blog

Sarajevo

How many times during our farewells last night did I hear, "See you in Sarajevo!" Centropa inspires teachers to want to return and reconnect with the stories and each other year after year. That's a testament to the films, to your amazing staff, and to the program well balanced between work sessions and moving locations to experience history.  But it was the last day's session, film, and exhibit about the war in former Bosnia that made the biggest personal connection with me.
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Teach Life

Once there was a life, a family, a community. They loved. They danced. They fought. They floundered.  As I leave what I hope will be my first Centropa experience, I remain focused on the concept of memorialization. But this time instead of my conflict with memory through monument from an earlier blog, I am at ease with film as memory.   At previous conferences including those I have attended as both participant and as facilitator, we would have many lectures: historians, authors, practitioners, and museum faculty.
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History Viscerally

Two more days spent together and very much the feeling of spending alone in reflection as well. It is appropriate that I waited until after visiting the Memorial to the Murdered Jews (a title as awkward as my feelings there but more on that later) before completing this blog. How does one "experience" the Holocaust in a city where its history in some ways began? 

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Slideshow Images

Change, Loss, and Collaboration

It's day three and trying to put together thoughts on everything we've experienced presents a challege. There is the history that surrounds you at every turn here, and you try to process for example the loss of those 40,000 who once occupied the Jewish quarter of Berlin. The synagogue that has but few who worship or the plaques to mark those murdered. Yesterday when we visited the sites of the wall remains you try to imagine the separation and the oppression. The memories remain palpable and will only continue to be as we finish our time together.

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