Educational material against antisemitism–for children and teenagers

„If you can convince one out of 50 children that Jews are not inferior to Christians then you have achieved a lot.“ [Rolf Abrahamson from the ZWEITZEUGEN e.V. interview from October 14th, 2012, Dorsten, Germany]

The personal life stories of Holocaust survivors can change our society. They help young people to understand history and to learn from it. Our part in this process is not to let the contemporary witnesses‘ stories be forgotten but to enable and encourage (young) people to carry them on as secondary witnesses. 

At the age of 10 children start having prejudices. Negative attitudes against groups of people lead to social exclusion. In our workshops we tell the stories of the Holocaust survivors to children and teenagers. They listen to them and become witnesses themselves, for “Everybody listening to a witness today becomes a witness themselves.”

Everyone of us can thus become a second witness of a contemporary witness - a secondary witness. 

With the help of these stories we sensitise to antisemitism and racism. Together we find a connection to the everyday life of the workshops’ participants and encourage them to pass on the stories as secondary witnesses, to become active themselves and to take on societal responsibility. This is our way to take on responsibility for democracy and diversity in our society.

In addition to the stories we tell at the workshops we also bring booklets with us that can be taken home by the participants: booklets that include not only the interviews with the contemporary witnesses but als further information, explanations of words, photographs and illustrations. Furthermore the booklets enclose exercises that help developing a deeper understanding of the life stories of Holocaust survivors and getting into a conversation about them. So step by step they can become an expert for a story and are able to pass it on as secondary witnesses.

Most of the time we meet class situations unknown to us. We know little about the participants’ abilities. The booklets help us to reach out to everyone, though. The exercises in the back part help differentiating with pace and capacity. So everyone gets the chance to understand and pass on those life stories. A short while ago we started to bring booklets in Plain Language. 

The concept of secondary witnessing has been developed by educators and scientists who work for our association. The didactical concept unites interdisciplinary approaches from Holocaust Education, religious pedagogy, cultural- and historical studies. 

The donation-total covers especially the design of the booklets, the creation of the illustrations and the printing of 1000 copies per contemporary witness.