EUSTORY Academies in 2011
"Neglected Victims – the Fate of Soviet Prisoners of WW II" and "Brussels: City of Minorities?"
From 10 - 17 September in Berlin, Germany. Organised and financed by the Körber Foundation, Germany . In cooperation with the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst. and from 28 August- 3 September in Brussels, Belgium, organised by BELvue, Democracy and History, Brussels and financed by the King Baudouin Foundation, Belgium.
In Brussels the students went in small groups to conduct speed-interviews in the metro while going to different parts of Brussels. They talked to people from more than 30 different origins, from Europe, Asia and Africa. But most of the interviewees were consider them Belgian in the first place. The short time they had for that talks left many questions unasked but it gave a first impression about the variety of minorities, and there will be more and more intensive interviews later this week. Hans Vandecandelaere, an expert about minorities in Belgium, provided them with more facts about the history of minorities and migration of Brussels. Afterwards they had the chance for more intensive talks with people from different minorities. In groups they prepared interviews with people originating from Italy, Poland, Marrocco, Rwanda, Congo, China, Vietnam or the Roma community in order to compare the different life stories and they prepared videos for a final presentation in the museum BELvue, where also some of the interviewees were present.
Yolanda summarizes her interview experience in Brussels with Quyen, a decendant from Vietnamese boat people who now owns a restaurant in Brussels: “There is always a moment that change your life, for me it was the interview with Quyen because she has taught me that if you want to do something and you have a dream nothing must stop you because if you work hard everything is possible.“
But the group didn’t stay only in Brussels, they also went on a field trip Vallonia in southern Belgium to discover more about the history of migration to Belgium. Southern Belgium, Vallonia, to visit and see the great canal systems and the museum of the former coalmine ‘Le Bois du Cazier’, which is now a museum and memorial center. The students got an inspiring guided tour through the everyday lives of the minors and got to see the tools and routines that the workers had and information about the big disaster on 8. August in 1956, where over 250 coal minors got trapped in the mine and died and about the political changes that came because of it. Krista from Finland: „Hearing and learning about the mining accident made me realize, that sometimes a disaster can bring awareness to the problems minorities are facing.”
While in Brussels the participants talked to several people; the focus during the Berlin academy was on just one story only: the one of Lev Alexandrejvitsch Netto, a 86 year old former POW.
Alone and in small groups the students were looking for questions and finally developed a questionnaire which covered his family background as well as and the time before the war, his life as soldier, his imprisonment, the return to the Soviet Union, including the internment in the gulag. The interview took more than 6 hours and not only the students were impressed by the openness and clarity Lev Alexandrejvitch told them his life story. He on the other hand felt very comfortable and honoured being interviewed by this group of really interested students. After six hours many questions were answered the students could have go on for another six hours to ask Lev Alexandrejvich about his eventful life. (Read here the summary of the interview)
Furthermore they visited an exhibition dedicated to the topic of Soviet POWs, a concentration camp and also had the chance to with Dr. Ralf Possekel of the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future on the compensation payments made by Germany. The fact that Soviet prisoners of war are excluded from compensation payments to date, was taken as an opportunity to consider alternative reparations or compensation gestures. So the students went out in groups to develop their own project ideas to remember the fate of these prisoners of war. They developed a booklet with biographies and a program for an "International day of prisoners of war."
At the end of both seminars the common opinion of all participants was that they should have been longer. Mariella from Bulgaria summarizes her experience in Berlin: "It was impressive to see how 24 young people from 14 countries were determined to convince the world that they are aware of the past and will shape the future."
