What were the social and political causes for the political transitions in Central and Eastern Europe? What consequences did they have for the individuals and the societies as a whole? What strategies are used to come to terms with the past?
These were the guiding questions for a group of 14 engaged citizens aged 26 to 52 from Belarus, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Turkey during a workshop in Berlin, Feb. 5-11.
The first part of the workshop consisted of discussions and testimonies from participants and eyewitnesses. Field trips to the Berlin Wall memorial site and the Stasi prison provided examples of transitional justice and public remembrance in the unified Germany.
Interrogation room at the Stasi prison memorial
In the second part of the workshop, the group played and evaluated a regime change simulation, set in a fictitious country in the midst of political upheaval and regime change. The simulation manual is available for download here.
This project was supported as a “Grundtvig Workshop” by the European Union Lifelong Learning Programme.