Spring School: Education and Remembrance

The programme also focuses on questions related to historical events, mechanisms of exclusion and the effects of discrimination and persecution. The aim is not only to advocate active remembrance and a diverse culture of remembrance, but also to promote independent, critical thinking, to get to know new people and their perspectives and to have fun and enjoy working together.

Based on the study of numerous historical sources, various creative methods support individual analysis and group discussions. Excursions, discussions with contemporary witnesses, group work and discussions of historical and political contexts complete the programme. The aim is to encourage participants to engage in dialogue with each other about contemporary issues, ongoing exclusion and the effects of persecution on ideological and racist grounds.

While the International Workcamp could only take place in digital or hybrid form from 2020 to 2022, the format has been continued since 2023 under the new name "Spring School Bergen-Belsen". The project objective of bringing the history of the Bergen-Belsen site closer and offering a youth-friendly framework for actively engaging with the past together and promoting democratic awareness and personal development can thus be realised again in direct contact.

In summer 2025, there was a "Spring School on Tour" due to the closure of the Anne Frank House in Oldau. In 2026, we hope to be able to organise the "Spring School" in the usual way at a new location.

This is a joint project of the associations of the Landesjugendring Niedersachsen e.V., the "Friedensort der Landeskirche Hannover "Aus der Geschichte lernen - Verantwortung für die Zukunft", formerly Anne Frank House, and the Bergen-Belsen Memorial.