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Experience history together
Past and present in the Czech-German youth exchange programme
22 February 2021
Memorial site at Hodonín u Kunštatu. Photo: Ingolf Seidel.Under the motto "Remembering together for a common future", the bilateral youth exchange between Germany and the Czech Republic has focused in recent years on dealing with their shared history.
At one time, international youth exchanges tended to focus on national customs and folk elements. The original thinking behind these official exchange and encounter programmes is linked to the concept of “friendship between nations”, which now sounds rather old-fashioned. The folk elements included, for example, shared social evenings at which the national culture of the country in question would be presented. Such events were clearly likely to involve a homogenisation of heterogeneous and diverse situations in which minorities were largely ignored. By contrast, other elements such as joint language animation exercises are indispensable. In the Czech-German youth exchange programme, in particular, significant changes have become apparent in recent years.
The formal and historical context
Youth exchanges between the Czech Republic and Germany are coordinated by offices in the Czech city of Pilsen and the German city of Regensburg which together form Tandem – the Czech-German Youth Exchange Coordination Centre. Programmes and topics are agreed by the Czech-German Youth Council, which is the main bilateral forum for issues relevant to young people in the two countries. Tandem’s tasks include providing financial support for various forms of youth work.
A focus on historical and political education under the slogan “Remembering together for a common future” has established a new emphasis in bilateral youth exchange programmes. As a result, exploration of shared history became a focal point of Czech-German youth work in the period 2017 – 2019. The shared history of the 20th century has become embedded in both countries’ cultures of history as a story of conflict, with the role of the aggressor being assigned primarily to the German side.
Topics and funding priority: “Remembering together for a common future”
For various reasons, the dynamics resulting from this conflict narrative have now weakened. The generational distance is one of the factors that helps explain why a discussion of joint remembrance has been so long in coming. The programme “Remembering together for a common future” in 2017 – 2019 enabled Tandem both to utilise existing contacts with memorial sites in Germany and the Czech Republic and to forge new links. Well-established schemes include the International, Intercultural Football Meeting Festival organised by the Tüpfelhausen association. A new element is the involvement of the memorial site at Hodonín u Kunštatu, which is managed by the Museum of Roma Culture in Brno. The memorial commemorates a “gypsy camp” that was located there during the German occupation; the camp commander and guards were Czech. From Hodonín, Roma were deported to the camp at Auschwitz for extermination. Exploration of this complicity in the National Socialist genocide of the Sinti and Roma is still a sensitive issue in Czech society. The participation of the Hodonín memorial site is therefore important at symbolic as well as practical level. Activities that have addressed the genocide of Sinti and Roma include a two-day training course for teachers and multipliers from both countries who are involved in out-of-school education activities. The historical situation is complex and it is important not to forget that the Czech actions only became possible against the backdrop of the German occupation and were embedded within the National Socialists’ extermination policy.
2020 – Start of a new emphasis during a pandemic
At the start of 2020 Tandem launched a new thematic priority for the next four years. Under the title “Youth shapes the future”, issues such as diversity, participation and democracy will be addressed in the Czech-German youth exchange programme. The aim is to create even closer links between historical and political education and between the past and present. The Czech-German youth meeting in November 2019 revealed that the young people have a major need for discussion of the political and social problems of our time. The memorial sites provide an opportunity to include the historical perspective. The issues to be explored and the ways in which they are linked to the challenges of the present will be worked out at further meetings, but these cannot be held until the Covid-19 pandemic is over.