EUSTORY | The History Network for Young Europeans

This is a collection of websites of projects and organisations that enable and facilitate a cross border dialogue about history. These external links are selected and reviewed by EUSTORY. However, EUSTORY is not responsible for the content of external websites.

LEM – The Learning Museum

LEM, the Learning Museum, is a new European project that started in 2010 and aims at creating a European network of museums and cultural heritage organizations active in the lifelong learning arena. In order to face the challenges of present and future decades and in order to react to changing societies, museums are expected not only to be learning places, but also learning organizations themselves. As learning organizations, museums have to learn from communities, from the public and also from other agencies, with whom they have to build alliances in order to achieve the aims set out by politics at the national and European level. LEM wants to support museums in all this.

(Hi)story in diversity

Global migration movements affect the local culture of remembrance.Immigration has led in Germany to a variety of memories of historical events. The number of memories of experiences of injustice and systematic violence of wars and civil wars, dictatorships, expulsions, persecution and genocide, colonialism and of resistance is large. Those experiences of historical injustice and collective violence can, particularly if they are controversial, reverberate long and lead to continuing tensions that strain the coexistence in the immigrant society.Educational institutions and the civil society are demanded to be open to thecultural and historical diversity and different perspectives. The "Foundation Remembrance and Future" (EVZ) supports educational projects on controversialor neglected historical references. The projects should contribute to a culture of respect and egalitarian communication and allow a peaceful coexistence of different groups in Germany. Civil society initiatives and nonprofit organizations from Germany are called to apply to the program. For more information please follow this link. 

EU Scholarships for the Western Balkans

The Scholarship Database is an online search engine for all Western Balkan students and researchers who would like to study in EU member states and EFTA countries and are looking for financial aid. The Scholarship Database contains information on a range of scholarships for Western Balkan students and researchers.

Higher education and science will play a crucial role for Western Balkan countries in their accession to and association with the European Union (EU). The transition of these countries – many of them new states on their way towards market oriented democracies with strong civil societies – will require a highly qualified workforce and a changed mindset of the population, which needs to develop a new sense of belonging and a spirit of ownership and responsibility. Education will be key in developing the resources available to contribute to the integration of local higher education systems into the European Higher Education Area. Increasing both the interest of students from the Western Balkans in studying abroad and the EU to support these students to do so is an integral part of the process. A study initiated by the King Baudouin Foundation, 'Student mobility in Western Balkan countries' highlighted the key problems that exist with Western Balkan student mobility into EU member state and EFTA countries. Of the students interviewed that would not consider study abroad, 51% cited insufficient money as a very important reason. Similarly, even when students were considering studying abroad, 62.4% answered that not finding enough money was a big problem. Considering these problems, the scholarship database contains information on a range of scholarships for Western Balkan students and researchers in European Union Member States and EFTA countries.

Learning from history

The website www.urokiistorii.ru is the Russian version of the project "Learning from History" following the example of the the Polish website www.uczyc-sie-z-historii.pl/ and the German version www.lernen-aus-der-geschichte.de. It gathers projects, events and topics of the history of the 20th century and its remembrance. The section "History and School" provides material and projects in historical-political education..

Paths of Remembrance

Twentieth-century Europe has been marked by dictatorship, war, forced labour and genocide. This has resulted in not only millions of deaths but also enforced mrepatriationigration, which has become stored in the collective memory as deportation, flight, evacuation, displacement, emigration, , dispossession, etc.. The challenge facing survivors and their descendants is that memories of these acts of violence are often connected with  places very far removed from their current lives. The geographical distance is intensified by the cultural distance which is created as those places are inhabited nowadays by different people whose memories relate to other, equally distant places. With the fall of the Iron Curtain it has become increasingly possible to return to these places, to visit and study them. The Geschichtswerkstatt Europa now calls for applications 2010: Paths of Remebrance. In the programme year 2010, within the framework of Geschichtswerkstatt Europa, the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility, Future" (EVZ) will be funding international teams as they collaborate on analysis of one or more Paths of Remembrance of particular relevance today.

n-ost

The Network for Reporting on Eastern Europe n-ost links journalists and media initiatives from about twenty European countries. They all share a European vision that encompasses both the east and the west of Europe. The focus of n-ost is on detailed reports from and about eastern Europe. Members of n-ost are against restrictions that limit journalistic endeavour. The network organizes training programmes for journalists, conferences, research journeys and international media projects. With its article subscription and radio services, n-ost provides information for radio stations and newspapers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Currently n-ost applies to the topic of 20 years of the political turning point in Eastern Europe. n-ost examines the topic from various geographical and textual perspectives with questions such as: Which change did happen since the fall of the communist regime in Eastern Europe? How far are democracy and civil society developed in the respective countries?

EUROCLIO

EUROCLIO wants to defend and promote history teaching as an essential subject in the education of young people as a response to an initiative of the Council of Europe and the changing political climate in Europe. Among the initial aims of the organization were the strengthening of the position of history in the school curriculum, the defence of intellectual freedom of teachers and the encouragement to develop a greater European awareness through the study of history teaching without neglecting global, regional and national dimensions. Since its establishment, EUROCLIO has been active in supporting the development of Associations of History Teachers in countries where none exist.

cafebabel.com – The European Magazine

cafebabel.com is a multilingual European current affairs magazine. Its aim is to stimulate and develop European public opinion, offering every day an in-depth coverage of political, cultural and social trends from a European perspective. These contents are written and translated by a community of ‘babelians’ and edited by a team of professional journalists. Furthermore the website offers multilingual blogs and forums. At a grassroots level, the community is moderated by a network of local teams promoting the European perspective through debates, conferences and other physical initiatives.

Europe & me

In July a new young European online magazine released its first issue: Europe & me. EUSTORY alumnus Christopher Wratil from Germany is a member of the international editorial group. Many other EUSTORY alumni support the magazine with columns and reportages.
Europe & Me is the first online magazine which delivers a real supranational perspective on the continent. The creators of the magazine understand Europe as a unifying framework for the identity of many young people nowadays; a house with many different rooms is still one house.
Europe & Me will be a lifestyle magazine based on the belief that „Europe is a state of mind“. A diverse range of sections and topics in one issue aim at providing the reader with both entertainment and information. In the section BRAIN will, for example, two young Europeans discuss historical backgrounds of relations and sentiments between their nations. Whereas a section like DIAPHRAGM will contain funny podcasts with important actors of European integration in unusual situations, in the section HEART one can read about transnational loves and their problems.
Europe & Me is supported by EUSTORY – History Network for Young Europeans, the Körber-Foundation, the German student magazin FOCUS Campus, the German School of Journalism, the Studienkolleg zu Berlin and the Kreisauer Initiative Berlin.

Lo Tishkach European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative

The Lo Tishkach European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative was established in 2006 as a joint project of the Conference of European Rabbis and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. It aims to guarantee the effective and lasting preservation and protection of Jewish cemeteries and mass graves throughout the European continent. A key aim of the project is to engage young Europeans in this process, bringing Europe’s history alive, giving a valuable insight into Jewish culture and mobilising young people of all faiths to care for a common heritage. Groups trained by Lo Tishkach will visit Jewish burial sites across Europe, gathering vital information on Jewish life and culture in each area and submitting cemetery condition reports that will be used as the basis for actions to preserve and protect these sites.

Centropa

The “Central Europe Centre for Research and Documentation” is an American organization with two main offices in Vienna and Budapest. The organization cooperates with 15 partner countries. The main purpose of the project is to recapitulate and exhibit Jewish culture in Europe - in this context the Holocaust is dealt with only as one aspect. The main focus is set on the all-day life of European Jews, e.g. their religious precepts, traditions, family ties, friendships or issues in their communities. One aspect of the network’s activities is therefore to collect memories and conduct interviews as well as to encourage Jewish persons to post personal stories, photographs or interviews on the website themselves and by doing so sharing, keeping memories alive and providing an insight in Jewish life for external interested persons. The research and documentation carried out by employees of the organization include tasks such as conducting interviews with contemporary witnesses, filling out family trees in requested cases, collecting and analyzing photographs and editing biographies and family stories of interviewees. Furthermore exhibitions, magazines, booklets, a website databases, educational programs and films are organized by Centropa. The 24-year-old EUSTORY alumnus Marius Florin Drasovean works for the Centropa team in Bucharest since 2006. He is a prize winner of the Romanian History Competition and participated in the International Youth Academy “The Long Shadow of World War II. Young Europeans about the Future of Remembrance” organized by the Körber Foundation in cooperation with “Buchenwald”- Memorial in 2004/05.

Learning from history

The multilingual website informs about project examples dealing with history and citizenship in schools, memorials and other educational institutions. While covering the 20th century history, there is an emphasis on National Socialism and World War II as well as their aftermath in Europe until the political upheaval in 1989. The website focuses on learning opportunities that highlight the present day relevance of history and offers an exchange of experiences about history and citizenship projects in Europe. The website provides educators with teaching materials and offers expert advice on organizing and funding projects. It provides an insight into project work in schools and non-school educational settings, additionally publishers reviews of publications and internet resources are offered on a weekly basis. An advisory board of experts decides on the selection of new projects and topics . Members of the advisory board answer individual inquiries to teaching and project ideas via e-mail.

EUNET

The "European Network for Education and Training e.V." is a network for European educational-facilities. The network consists of Non-Governmental-Organisations that inform, educate or in any other way spreads the European Idea to teenagers and adults. EUNET has the goal to intensify the experience-exchange, to increase the quality of the offers, to develop and distribute methodical-didactic materials as well as simulations and to make the activities of the EUNET-members visible to a wider public.

Eurozine

Eurozine is a network of European cultural journals, linking up 70 partner journals and just as many associated magazines and institutions from nearly all European countries. Eurozine is also a net magazine which publishes outstanding articles from its partner journals with additional translations into one of the major European languages.

Paths of Memory

The two World Wars and the Spanish Civil War deeply affected Europe during the last century. Every year, ceremonies are organised at a local or national level to commemorate episodes from these wars. However, many places of suffering are barely or insufficiently known. The site Paths of Memory presents both: highly symbolic and well-known places as well as sites which are almost completely forgotten. As a joint endeavour of institutions from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom the site respects differences which may exist between various national memories.

www.ungarn1956.de

The history and the remembrance of the Hungarian revolution of 1956 is the topic of the German website www.ungarn1956.de. The project is a cooperation of different German research Institutes of Contemporary History. It was launched on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the uprising. Participants of the EUSTORY online project “Remembering protest, resistance and civil disobedience in Europe” contributed to the manifold material on this website as well. As one stage of their internet communication the participants from 12 European countries analyzed how the 50th anniversary of the uprising in Hungary 1956 was perceived in national media. A selection of their research can be found on the website www.ungarn1956.de.

Migration Citizenship Education

The webite www.migrationeducation.org of Network Migration in Europe e.V. is an information platform which provides free online access to learning resources on migration, minorities and human rights in Citizenship Education on European and national level. The country profiles of Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia show diverse and similar migration experiences and conflicts. Moreover the website offers support for all those involved in the fields of education, politics, culture, media and society.

Uczyć się z historii

The Foundation KARTA Centre, member organization of the EUSTORY network, has created the website http://www.uczyc-sie-z-historii.pl/ , following the example of the German website www.lernen-aus-der-geschichte.de. The Polish version shows how the topic "War: occupation, resistance, genocide and expulsion" is addressed in historical-political education in Poland. Moreover it gives ideas how to deal with these issues through students' competitions.

The Unwanted

Personal experiences and remembrance are the core of the German website "The Unwanted". The website delivers an online documentation about resettlement, migration and displacement in Europe in the 20th Century. As the database offers materials such as photos, narratives by contemporary witnesses and film material, it makes an individual and innovative access to the topic of "migration" possible. The portal was established by the network "Migration in Europe" along with experts from Bosnia, Germany, Greece, Poland and Turkey.

Joint History Project

The "Southeast European Joint History Project" brings together professors of Balkan history from throughout the region. In the framework of the project they analyse and discuss the ways in which history is used to influence political and social relations in the region. The project aims to create and sustain a network of scholars to counterbalance nationalist ideology, to evaluate history textbooks currently used in schools, in particular, bringing to light the way that other ethnicities are portrayed in the textbooks. The Joint History Project aims in the long-term to revise ethnocentric school history teaching - by avoiding the production of stereotypes, by identifying attitudes that encourage conflict, by suggesting alternative teaching methods, and by promoting the idea of multiple interpretations of one event.