House of the Wannsee Conference
 

STUDY DAYS FOR STUDENTS OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING SCHOOLS

Students enrolled in vocational training schools are an important target group for educational work in the House of the Wannsee Conference. Their day-to-day experience differs from those of the other pupils. During their visit to the House of the Wannsee Conference they frequently deal with National Socialism for the last time before leaving school.
Experience shows that these groups usually benefit more from a study day than from a guided tour through the exhibition. The former offers greater possibility for discussion and more time to clarify the students’ own views. Here, too, the study days are designed according to the profile of each given group—its composition, prior knowledge, and the interests voiced by the students. 
When working with students already engaged in vocational training or attending vocational training schools, topics which concentrate on the participants’ own vocation and its history at the time of National Socialism seem most appropriate. This enables them to clarify how those who worked in the given vocation were influenced, and what their responsibility and scope of action was.

Aspects to be discussed include the mechanisms of exclusion that affected people at their place of work and in their respective working environments, but also the attempts to integrate workers into the “People’s Community“ [“Volksgemein­schaft“] by means of special gratuities and offers leading to better jobs. In addition, laws and prohibitions that were revised and which applied to those to be trained must be discussed, but also the policies of occupational associations and organisations that were trying to ingratiate themselves with the National Socialist regime. Finally, wage and social policies, control mechanisms, and intrusions into the sphere of private life are discussed.

Since events that incurred in daily life are chosen as a point of departure, students can visualise such events on the basis of their own experience while at the same time recognising characteristic features of the National Socialist regime. The lure of the “German national comrade [Volksgenosse]“ is elucidated as well as the suppression of those who were being excluded because they were ”alien to the people’s community“ or “racially inferior“ and “members of an alien race“. In other words, the racism which formed the basis of all National Socialist politics and which ultimately led to extermination is discussed as well. This approach makes it possible to combine the history of daily life under National Socialism with the central theme of the House of the Wannsee Conference, the persecution and extermination of the Jews.

After basic information has been transmitted during a study day, specially selected descriptive material from documents, biographies, photographs, professional journals, and advertisements is made available to working groups. The material is selected in such a way that the perspectives of victims and perpetrators contrast with one another. Working groups interpret and evaluate the authentic material independently within a set period of between one to two hours. To assist in this study, a specially prepared book trolley with dictionaries and other works of reference as well as the library are at their disposal. In a concluding session, the results of the research are presented to the fellow-students, and the conclusions reached by the various working groups linked to each other. During this process questions about the actual significance of the historical events for the students’ respective vocations are discussed.

Study days with specific vocational approaches to various topics have been developed and tested. These include ”Nourishment and Politics during the National Socialist Era“ for trainees in the field of ”Gastronomy/Cook“; ”The Cult of the Body and Aesthetic Standardisation“ for those training to become hairdressers; ”Conformity versus Young People Refusing to Conform During National Socialism“ for those undergoing training to work with children and young people in a range of different professions; and, finally, ”Eugenics and ‘Euthanasia’“ for prospective nurses and hospital orderlies. Topics such as these can usually be worked on successfully with trainees in related vocational fields, too.

Experience with this approach has been very positive. It encourages lively discussion among vocational trainees about the extent of suppression under a dictatorship and stimulates a wish to learn more even among those students who are convinced that they already know everything about the ”Third Reich“ and therefore initially do not welcome another discussion about the history of National Socialist crimes.