Call for applications: Grants for international projects on European remembrance

Period of grant: April to October 2010

Closing date for sending project outlines: October 26th 2009


Geschichtswerkstatt Europa is a programme set up by the Foundation "Remembrance,
Responsibility, Future" (EVZ), which supports international projects addressing the issue of the
culture of memory and remembrance in Europe. Its aim is to strengthen dialogue between young
Europeans comparing the differences and similarities in historical perceptions of the collective
experience of oppression in the 20th century at a national, regional and local level.

The Institute for Applied History is responsible for project support in cooperation with the European
University Viadrina. The Institute provides advice and support on project ideas, from sketching the
initial outline to completing the application and accounting procedures. It will also organise a meeting
in Frankfurt (Oder) in spring 2010, where project content and method can be discussed and
individual participants can network.

Call for applications 2010: 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 migration, which has become stored in
the collective memory as deportation, flight, evacuation, displacement, emigration, repatriation,
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 connection between the past and the present, indeed, between one
place and another, has been established since then by way of journeys, narration, symbols and
rituals. The Paths of Remembrance thus taken help to recollect routes of forced migration and to
reduce the distance that eventuated from it.

In the programme year 2010, within the framework of Geschichtswerkstatt Europa, the Foundation
EVZ will be funding international teams as they collaborate on analysis of one or more Paths of
Remembrance of particular relevance today. This means that the subject of project work needs to
have the potential to create understanding, reconciliation and/or conflict for the societies
concerned.

The project work can involve field work related to tracing routes, memorial sites, museums and
memorials, as well as analysis and compilation of oral and written statements. In addition to
empirical study, the projects of Geschichtswerkstatt Europa should establish the wider public
awareness needed to encourage dialogue over European cultures of remembrance.

Perceptions of history among Jewish migrants from Russia

Jewish migrants who grew up in the Soviet Union and later lived in Germany or Israel are asked
about their perception of the history of the Shoah and the Second World War. Subsequent
comparisons will shed light on the influence of emigration and the confrontation of differing cultures
of remembrance in their respective new "home countries".

The Porajmos within the Romani culture of remembrance

A project team comprising Polish, Czech and Hungarian members sets out to find and study
institutions whose main issue is the genocide of the Romani. Museums, local initiatives and
festivals are visited with the aim of grasping the current remembrance of the Porajmos. Particular
significance is given to the distance between the places where the crimes occurred and those of
their remembrance.

Thessaloniki and the European Memory

A German-Turkish-Hungarian-Israeli team carries out an exemplary investigation of the connection
between forced migration and its remembrance in the 20th century, based on the different national
groups in the Greek-Macedonian harbour town. The comparative study focuses on the
consequences which deportation and genocide of Turks and Jews had on the present-day town,
and on the strategies of remembrance adopted by their descendants and the present-day Greek
population. In the search for evidence of national debates on remembrance, memorial sites,
institutions and archives in Thessaloniki, Istanbul and Israel are visited.

Traces of forced labour in post-Soviet towns

The joint German-Kazakh-Russian project examines on location how the subject of Soviet forced
labour is dealt with in the present-day towns of Karaganda and Taishet, which themselves evolved
out of labour camp sitesof the GULag. Is the subject of forced labour and the resettlement that
accompanied it openly accepted, or did the town's history does begin only once it began to grow
with the following generation? The local remembrance is analysed with regard to the visible culture
of remembrance, through discussions with historical witnesses and interviews with young
residents.

Hinterland 1 + 2 + 3

A German-Kazakh team makes a documentary film about three generations of Russian-Germans:
a woman from the Volga who was deported during the Second World War, a Volga-German
descendant who remained in Kazakhstan and a Rapper who lives in Germany and whose songs
are about Kazakhstan. The project aims to highlight the significance of the routes covered and
paths taken by means of documentary film.

Funding

Geschichtswerkstatt Europa funds international projects involving students, graduates, young
academics, journalists, artists and other members of civilian society between 18 and 35 years of
age, who collectively set out to retrace a Path of Remembrance between April and October 2010.
The projects will be planned and carried out by the applicant together with a partner from another
Central or East European country or Israel. Presentation and discussion of the project should aim
to reach a wider audience. It is expected that the project will result in a joint contribution to the
Geschichtswerkstatt Europa internet platform in the form of text, photos or video.
Projects can be financed in one of two ways : Institutions planning a project with more than
4 participants are eligible for grants for travel, accommodation, materials and communication up to
a maximum of 15,000 Euros. International teams of between 2 and 4 people without any
attachment to an institution can claim a maximum of 2,500 Euros per person to carry out the entire
project.

Outlines

Each project team is required to submit a plan which answers the following questions:
1. Which international team will be carrying out the project?
2. What is the key issue via which the Paths of Memory are to be retraced?
3. What steps have been planned for implementing this issue? What methods will be used?
4. What form will communication between the project partners take?
5. In what form will the project results be compiled and presented to a wider audience?
6. What costs will be involved in carrying out the project?
A project outline can be submitted between September 1st and October 26st, 2009, via the online
form at Geschichtswerkstatt Europa. In November 2009, a jury of experts will decide on the
projects that will be invited to apply for funding.

Contact
Institut für angewandte Geschichte e. V. Contact: Bernd Vogenbeck
Geschichtswerkstatt Europa Tel.: +49 (0) 335 5534 5535
Große Scharrnstraße 59 Mail: [log in to unmask]
15230 Frankfurt (Oder) Skype: geschichtswerkstatt
Germany www: geschichtswerkstatt-europa.org

Geschichtswerkstatt Europa is a programme set up by the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and
Future" to address the issue of European remembrance. The Institute for Applied History is responsible for
coordinating project funding in cooperation with the European University Viadrina. The International Forum is
organised by the Global and European Studies Institute at the University of Leipzig.