History as Learning Site

   Information for Teachers

   Topics of Seminars

   Visits, Seminars and
   Study Days

• Historical site and memorial
   

• The educational opportunities

The present Memorial Site - formerly the villa of an industrialist - was used between 1941 and 1945 as a guest house for the SS. On January 20, 1942, fifteen high-ranking representatives of the SS, the NSDAP and various ministries discussed here how to cooperate on the planned deportation and murder of all European Jews. The SS-officers reported quite frankly to the various state secretaries present about the murderous actions that had been carried out in the occupied parts of the Soviet Union since August 1941 by Special Units ("Einsatzgruppen"), including the killing methods. The representatives of the ministries made suggestions reflecting the specific interests of their respective departments but did not raise any basic objections whatsoever regarding the planned systematic and indiscriminate murder of Jewish children, women and men. The minutes of this meeting were taken by Adolf Eichmann, the expert for deportation in the Reich Security Main Office. They document the appalling fact that the traditional state administrative agencies had become accomplices to a monstrous crime which anticipated the murder of 11 million human beings.

The most characteristic feature of the genocide of the European Jews is its bureaucratic organisation, whereby, besides the SS, state institutions and members of many different professional groups were to varying degrees accomplices on account of their knowledge and responsibility, while most Germans were at least passive observers of the deportations. Therefore the central objectives of the Memorial Site within the ”house of the perpetrators“ are: to provide information about the fate of the victims and to remember them by means of a permanent exhibition, a library, and educational work, and also to inform about the perpetrators and the organisation of their crimes. This also includes the historical, ideological and structural background (i.e., the history of the Jews, the crisis of democracy, racism, anti-Semitism, authoritarian society) as well as the aftermath of National Socialism and the question of how Germany has dealt with its past since 1945. In addition the connections between the murder of the European Jews and the other racially motivated mass crimes of the National Socialists are being investigated: the murder of the mentally ill and the physically handicapped; the persecution and murder of the Sinti and Roma; the enslavement and murder of a large segment of the non-Jewish population in eastern Europe as a result of the German policy of conquest and Germanisation; and, finally, the murder of millions of Soviet Russian prisoners of war.

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• The educational opportunities

The educational opportunities at the house are addressed to pupils and other young people, and also to adults.

Generally the seminars for adults are vocationally oriented. Their central theme is how the respective occupational groups to which the seminar participants belong acted during the time of National Socialism. Proceeding from there, the discussion concentrates on the significance which the history of National Socialist crimes has in our own time.

In courses for teachers and trainee teachers, the educational programme of the house is discussed. Beyond that, various possibilities and problems associated with the question of how to deal with National Socialism during lessons in school are investigated.

The educational work with pupils in the House of the Wannsee Conference does not aim to substitute the lessons taught in school about the history of National Socialist persecution of the Jews. Instead, the opportunities offered by this historical site should be utilised to gain deeper insights into significant aspects of the genocide of the Jews, and to deal with one’s own emotional reactions caused by confrontation with these events. Furthermore, with the aid of the exhibits and the various sources and media available, the house as a place of learning facilitates in-depth study of a range of particular topics. The absence of institutional constraints such as curricular guidelines and rigid time schedules allows for methods of teaching and learning that motivate participants to try, actively and self-critically, to gain insights into the history of National Socialist crimes and their effects on the present.

The educational opportunities are designed according to the interests and prior knowledge of the participants. For this reason, there are neither standard guided tours nor standard seminars. These principles, which so far have proved to be very successful, are based on the assumption that the supervisors of any given study group are prepared for both long-term pre-registration and preliminary discussion of course contents (by telephone). All functions can be conducted in many European languages as well as in Hebrew.