These workshops for youth groups and school classes last three to five days. We encourage groups to talk to us ahead of time about what topics and activities they are most interested in. We offer the following workshops, but other topics can also be arranged with prior consultation:
“What does this have to do with us?” is a question one often hears at the memorial. In this project week, we will focus on this theme using different materials and methods. We begin with the background history of the Neuengamme concentration camp, then we take a closer look at how Nazi ideology served as a basis for persecution. We will also relate this to today by looking at how the judiciary and society have dealt with the history of Neuengamme and the Nazi era since 1945. We look at what has and has not changed regarding antisemitism, racism and marginalisation over time, and what role elements of right-wing ideology play in this. We conclude by exploring the question: “What can we do today?”
In this workshop, we will investigate how historical events are portrayed through the media of photography and film. What techniques make historical events seem more present, and what personal experiences would we want to portray in picture form as a way of relating to historical events? An active appropriation of the historical site of the Neuengamme concentration camp is the focal point of this workshop. Through this hands-on approach, participants are encouraged to explore the site through photography and film and to find their own forms of expression.
This workshop focuses on artworks by prisoners in Neuengamme concentration camp. What perspectives of historical events can we find in the drawings and paintings? How do the prisoners portray daily life in the camp? How did they see their fellow prisoners, or the SS? In order to broaden our perspective, we will also visit other monuments and memorial sites in the city of Hamburg and discuss how events in the camp were conveyed in artworks after the war ended in 1945.
We begin this radio workshop by taking a closer look at the Memorial. How is the medium of sound used in the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial? We will reflect on different forms of medialisation of National Socialism. Participants also have the opportunity to record material with an MP3 device to make a radio show that can be broadcast by a local non-commercial radio station or posted as a podcast on the Memorial’s homepage.
Participants of this project week will be learning more about the Memorial by exploring different locations and their history. The main focus will be on the decisions available to, and made by, prisoners, SS-men and citizens who lived near the camp. Based on their impressions, thoughts and emotions during the workshop, participants will design a storyboard for making a stop motion film.
This project focuses on (historical) places and topics that have been selected and prepared for special needs classes. On the first day in the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, the situation of prisoners is explained with the help of tactile objects, and much time is spent at various locations.
On the second day, the pupils watch a film and make their own wall posters about the fate of a single prisoner. On the third day, we visit the Bullenhuser Damm Memorial, where pupils break up into teams to discuss the life stories of the children murdered there. Each team then presents the biography of one of the children to the class. At the end of the workshop, the class can plant a commemorative rose bush in the rose garden on the Memorial grounds.