Pupils in the "living archive"

The aim was to use historical photos and documents to tell the life story of a specific person.

The partners in this project were 15 pupils from the grammar school in Teplice in the Czech Republic.

The German and Czech pupils met in Reinsdorf on Monday afternoon and played a quiz on German-Czech history in the evening.

The day began early on Tuesday with a guided tour of Zwickau. The pupils learned a lot about Jewish life at the time.

After lunch, we went to Teplice. On arrival, we continued with a guided tour of the town and a tour of the local grammar school.

The next day, there was a guided tour of the "Our Germans" exhibition at the town museum in Ustinad Labem. The pupils learned a lot about the history of the German-speaking population in the Czech lands. Through interactive elements, they learned about the coexistence of Germans and Czechs, the conflicts and the expulsion of the German Bohemians in the 20th century.

On Thursday, the pupils were divided into groups. The Czech and German pupils were mixed. During the course of the day, short but elaborate videos were created. The videos consisted of many individual images.

The focus was on Malva Schalek, a Jewish painter from Prague who lived at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century. The groups chose a period from her life or looked for references or similarities to their own lives.

After the videos were completed on Friday, they were presented to around thirty pupils in the school's auditorium.

After the performance and an intensive week, our students returned to Reinsdorf with many new experiences.