| Centropa

Getting to know and “adopting” my neighborhood

A year-long project that includes several parts—making videos and a photograph tour of the local Jewish history in Thessaloniki, creating a Holocaust library for the school, creating an exhibition for students to present their work to the school. The goal: to help students understand the sociopolitical motives that drive people into committing atrocities. I believe that my students learned to recognize prejudiced attitudes, racist behaviors and also developed skills in order to face them off in the future.

Greek Jewry of Thessaloniki

Tags

Educational resources

The subject of the script concerns the acquisition of knowledge of local history, focusing our attention on the multiculturalism of Thessaloniki and especially on the existence of a prosperous Jewish Community until World War II. To serve that goal, two films from the Centropa organization are used together with the website of the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki. The aim of the script is to give students the opportunity to acquire basic knowledge so that they can take part in the creation of a short film on the Holocaust.

Diary and Memoir Project

Tags

biographical films

Holocaust

Survivor stories

An interdisciplinary lesson is designed to expose students to important responses to historical and social events and enable students to explore the following statement of inquiry: In times of social crisis man seeks meaning and value in his life through expression. This lesson uses Centropa’s film Return to Rivne, among other primary sources, and was designed for distance learning.

Ninja Stehr

Deputy Director; Manager of Public History Programs & Diversity and Inclusion Officer (currently on maternity leave)

stehr [at] centropa.org

Ninja Stehr studied History at the University of Hamburg with a focus on media, gender, and culture in the 20th century. After graduating with a Master degree, she did a traineeship in a studio for exhibition design in Berlin, where she specialized in museum education and editing. She continued to work as a freelancer for exhibition projects and in event management until she joined Centropa in 2020. She is now coordinating education projects as a project manager and is functioning as the Deputy Director and Diversity&Inclusion Officer in Centropa Hamburg.

Could you be righteous?

Tags

Holocaust

Students will understand who were Righteous Among the Nations – people who not only saved Jews but risked their lives while doing that. They will be introduced the basic stages in the development of moral reasoning (Kohlberg’s interpretation). Holocaust dilemmas will help students understand the challenges that non-Jews have been faced with. They will understand the circumstances in which people lived during World War II through personal stories from 3 Centropa’s films as well as through research and analysis on the Righteous from Krusevac.

Jewish People and Gentiles

Tags

Our textbooks have very little information on the Holocaust. Students are familiar with the impacts of the Holocaust in Germany and Poland but they know very little about Eastern European countries. Many Jewish people were saved and taking the time to learn about the Gentiles allows our students to see how different people around the world helped.

Forgiveness

Tags

moral questions

Post-war

relationships with gentiles

Students will explore the concept of “Forgiveness” while studying the Holocaust. Using a Centropa Film and the book “The Sunflower: On The Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness," students will explore their own attachment to “home” and the existential question of “Would you forgive if someone took what was dearest to you away?”

Renee Molho –Α bookstore in six chapters

The Jewish community of Thessaloniki was one of the Jewish communities in Europe that were completely destroyed during the Holocaust (94% of its members were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau). After the war only 1.950 Jews were counted in Thessaloniki. This lesson plan, which is based on Centropas’ film “Renee Molho –Α bookstore in six chapters“, provides the tools which students need to learn about this lost community and its people who participated in the historical events, people with specific names, jobs, lives and not simply anonymous victims.

Anna Kožemjakin

Centropa Coordinator for Bosnia

kozemjakin [at] centropa.org

Anna Kožemjakin was born in 1986 in Ukraine. She obtained her MA in History and Jewish studies at the International Solomon University in Kiev, Ukraine. Anna studied at "Paideia - European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden“. before moving to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2009, where she volunteered in the Jewish community and worked in the Sunday school, on art projects, and preparing prayer books for the community. In 2017, Anna joined Centropa as our coordinator in Bosnia.

The final solution

A work by my students

https://youtu.be/nOKMbhInJfc

Subscribe to