Contact:
ritz@jgh-dachau.de

www.jgh-dachau.de

Current living place:
Dachau, Germany

Nina Ritz

Pedagogical Director “Max-Mannheimer-Studienzentrum” Dachau

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• My organization:
  Institution concerning historical and political education, related to the history of the Dachau concentration camp and the history of National Socialism in general. Seminar projects for school classes and all groups of young people, international seminar projects, exhibitions, training courses for education workers at memorial sites, expert conferences, memorial site networking.

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• Examples of concrete activities I have organized/am organizing in the field of “dealing with the past”:
  

  Projects in cooperation with French-German Youth Office: 2008/2009 French-German-Bosnian: “Between Remebrance and Oblivion: Difficult places in Europe”; 2009/2010 French-German-Croatian: “Crossed History: Approach to a European Memory”; 2010/2011 French-German-Serbian: “The Propaganda of War: Origins and Instrumentalisation in the 20th Century” Earlier projects in cooperation with EuroMed and Europeans for Peace with Algeria, Israel, Norway, Poland, France, Belarus, Czech Republic and others.

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• Concrete challenges I am facing in my “dealing with the past”-related work:
  

  Due to the chronological distance to WWII, for many of young people today in Germany the Third Reich has become something quite distant ; “the Nazis” are a historicized époque almost just like other historical periods like “The Romans”. In addition young people today are increasingly influenced by the media who deal with the topic as a virtual reality. Blockbuster movies like “Schindler’s list” contribute to reducing the Third Reich among young people to a collection of individual human stories, where a contextual and critical understanding of the period is often missing." In the educational work with youth groups it often happens that they draw comparisons to other genocides, wars or actual political happenings (e.g. to the wars in Yugoslavia). I am interested to exchange with others how to deal with that in reaction and how to integrate comparisons by intention in a reasonable way.

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• My personal link to/interest for the topic of “dealing with difficult pasts”:
  
  • Basic interest is focused on history of National Socialism and the history of World War II in different countries
  • Different national perspectives of the reception of history of National Socialism
  • Exchange experiences with other institutions, organizations dealing with historical circumstances