THE NOMADIC SCHOOL OF REMEMBRANCE
76 years after the liberation of Auschwitz and at a time when the direct witnesses of the atrocities of the 20th C. are disappearing inexorably, this project travels around historical traces in 6 cities from across Europe (Marseille, Brussels, Barcelona, Athens, Sofia and Timisoara) and proposes to transform the way of perceiving places of memory, as a central citizenship educational tool.
A Nomadic school is temporarily installed in significant urban places, for a triple encounter: with the urban space, with its history and between groups of young citizens from diverse cultural backgrounds. In-situ workshops connect past and present, the other and oneself and engage participants in profound dialogues about discrimination, including xenophobia, racism, antisemitism and anti-gypsyism.
The project’s main objectives are:
º To reveal the memory of places and develop a common reflection between very different groups around the current realities related to it: raise awareness of discrimination of all types established in the past in Europe; allow an open dialogue between very different parts of local society on the memory of the city and the current perception of the other, raise awareness of the importance of European remembrance work for the preservation and deepening of democracy; be aware of the past to enhance the value of the EU.
º To connect historical realities – local and global in Europe – creating a reflexion on the current situation of discrimination still present in Europe. Conceived as a European Journey, each participating group will send to the next city the most relevant and profound questions that, following their interpretation, the remembrance site raises. This “Relay-journey” generates common interpretations of history, precisely thanks to the diverse perspectives on the same theme.
900 youth and 2000 adults will participate directly through on-site workshops managed by a consortium of 7 experienced partners, ending in Timisoara at beginning of 2023.
CITIES PROJECTS CALENDAR / PARTICIPANTS
MARSEILLE
Location :
Panier - Belsunce
Halles Puget and “Maison de Provence des loisirs et des sports” close to the “Panier”; a district partially destroyed during the World War II by Nazi forces and Vichy French Government to “erase” the local Resistance and Jews. In the Panier district, few Memorials plaques and monuments remember this moment and the Deportation Camps.
MARSEILLE - First step
The Nomadic School location: Maison de Provence de Jeunesse et des Sports (MPJS), opposite the Halle Puget.
Final Presentation: at the Museum of the History of the City of Marseille, on 5 May.
Total participants in Marseille: 207.
Around 100 people were interviewed in the public space.
SOFIA
Location :
Serdika district
The district of Serdika, where the synagogue commemorates the rescue of the Jewish community and the local resistance to Nazis. The Bania Bachi Mosque and other main catholic edifices are located in this place, as well as an architectural ensemble of three socialist classicism edifices where the former Bulgarian Communist Party had its headquarter
SOFIA - Fourth step
The Nomadic School location: Serdica ancient complex under the Dome
Final presentation: at the House of Cinema, on November 6th.
Total participants in Sofia: 186
Around 100 people were interviewed in the public space.
BRUSSELS
Location :
Distric of Saint Géry
The St. Géry halls are in the City center where can be found many traces of the Nazi occupation and the deportation of many of its Jewish population. In particular through Stolperstein and other traces, around different historical parts such as the “Halles Saint Géry”.
BRUSSELS - Second step
The Nomadic School location: Halles Saint-Géry, in the center of the city
Final presentation: at the Halles Saint-Géry, on 7 June.
Total participants in Brussels: 178
Around 100 people were interviewed in the public space.
ATHENS
Location :
Thissio district
The Holocaust Memorial in the Thissio district. The site is close to the synagogue in Melidoni street where Jews of Athens were trapped and captured by the Germans. Nearly 90 percent of Greek Jews were sent to concentration camps and exterminated
ATHENS - Fifth step
The Nomadic School location: in the Holocaust Memorial garden and in the Association of Greek Archaeologists, in Thisseo district.
Final presentation: Serafio Space, on January 17th.
Total participants in Athens: 182
Around 100 people were interviewed in the public space.
BARCELONA
Location :
Estació de França & Ribera district
La Estacio de França (France Train Station)is the symbol of exile during and after the Spanish Civil War and Francoism, and later on, the arrival place for refugees’ during the World War II.
BARCELONA - Third step
The Nomadic School location: Estació de França, in the center of the city
Final presentation: at the Centre Civic Barceloneta, June 15th.
Total participants in Barcelona: 185
Around 100 people were interviewed in the public space.
TIMIȘOARA
Location :
City center & central square
The Victory Square, where Timisoara was proclaimed in 1989 the first city free of communism in Romania, the starting point of a revolution which liberated the country from the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu.
TIMISOARA- Last and sixth step
The Nomadic School location: Projects’ Center of Timisoara, in the city center.
Final presentation: at the Cinema Victoria, on February 26th.
Total participants in Timisoara: 179.
Around 100 people were interviewed in the public space.
EUROPEAN MEETING, JUNE 27 & 28TH, 2022
On 27 and 28 June 2022, the mid-term seminar, also called European meeting, was held in Marseille at the MUCEM-lab. 42 people – partners, educators, committed personalities, politicians, beit team – met and gathered.
During two days, we reflected together on the importance of the preservation of the European memory for the future of democracy and how to change the current situation of discrimination in Europe. It was also a time to get to know each other in person and to work together on the different phases of the project: the evaluation of those already carried out and the preparation of those to come.
EXHIBITION
A nomadic photographic project
Closure Exhibition March in Timisoara
A closing event will be organized in March 2023 in Timisoara, last city of the European journey, as part of the European cultural capital. This closing event will be celebrated with a public photographic exhibition around the commemoration places explored by the youth in the cities of Marseille, Brussels, Barcelona, Athens, Sofia and Timisoara. Places of heritage and memory will be presented in this exhibition as living bodies that react to the environment, the human activities, the political and economic decisions, the relations between the inhabitants. The multiplicity of memories and experiences, past or present, as well as individual experiences and histories once gathered, retrace the history of places, shed light on the present and allow them to build the future. Through this photographic project, we would like to:
- reveal the shared living spaces,
- develop a feeling of belonging to the commemoration places as elements of our heritage and history,
- create a link between the inhabitants by changing the way people look at each other (their neighbor, the newcomer, between generations, etc.),
- write a different history and experience on places of heritage and memory,
- put in relation different commemoration places in Europe using pictures.
Lucy Winkelmann
Photographer, artist and guide.
Her photographic work focuses on the notion of human identity, on the link with geographic, urban, sociological territory, culture, history, transmission. She like to play with the light, the transparencies, the overlays and the dreamlike reality.
Through her projects what interests her most is to capture a moment, create a exchange and tell a story. The human is the heart of image: the photographic medium becomes a social image of our time.
NOMAD SUITCASE
QUESTION OBJECT
The history of the chosen urban heritage site, linked to issues of discrimination or solidarity in the past, allows raising awareness on subjects directly linked to the participants’ intercultural experience of the city.
In each site, a process of intercultural dialogue and common interpretation of heritage will lead participants to formulate in their words, the main questions, they understood from the remembrance places they’ve been through. These questions will then be transmitted to the participants of the next city by the form of a “question-object”, like a Russian doll in which the different questions are overlaid, as well as by videos made by all young participants. Public presentations in each city will enable a multiplying effect toward heritage and citizenship organizations, as well as local policy makers.
The question object takes the form of a wooden suitcase that will travel from city to city, and will be presented and completed at each final presentation.
