Starting point of the project
The first phase of the project developed from specific requests from the selected professional groups (e.g. from the police, administrative lawyers and administrative staff) and from existing collaborations (e.g. with the Lower Saxony barracks near the Bergen-Belsen memorial).
The Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation carried out the research and education project "What benefits the state is right?" from November 2021 to the end of 2022 in cooperation with the Speakers' Council of the Lower Saxony Memorials Interest Group.
Aims and structure of the project
The aim was to sensitise and strengthen system-relevant professional groups for democratic action in dealing with their target groups by focusing on historical education. However, as this is not enough to raise awareness of one's own prejudices, three relevant didactic fields were combined to combat the phenomena of group-focused misanthropy:
- Historical-political education, which reflects on the history of one's own professional group during National Socialism and relates it to the present, as a basis for addressing
- Workshops with methods of anti-bias work to reflect on one's own structures of prejudice
- Encounter pedagogy to deepen what has been learnt in exchange with those affected
Lasting effects
Memorial centres in Lower Saxony are well networked with each other. Some of the memorials offer further training for professional groups. The materials developed in the course of the project were made digitally accessible to memorials in Lower Saxony and throughout Germany in workshops and via a website. Adequate funding and staffing is a prerequisite for ensuring that the training courses can remain institutionalised.
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Supported by:
The project is funded by the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ) and the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF).
