On 28 January 2026, we held our closing event at the House of the Wannsee Conference and addressed the topic ‘Impulses for educational work combating antisemitism’. Partners and participants in the series ‘Antisemitism as a challenge in historical-political education’ were invited to attend.

Dr. Matthiaß Haß, deputy director, head of the education department, and the project’s senior advisor, opened the day’s event by presenting our project to the attendees again. Focusing on the Net4Call project’s goals, he placed emphasis on the exchange with our partner, Forum for Dialogue.

Anna Stocker and Verena Bunkus followed up with a review of the joint event series that began with the kick-off event and included day-long seminars in Berlin and Brandenburg. They offered brief insights into the respective events and main topics. Afterwards, the participants formed small groups to discuss the potential and problems of the format, including best practices, collegial consultation, further training and networking. What did we achieve? What were the challenges and what remained unresolved?

The things we achieved included: building networks; gaining new information, ideas and approaches; discovering new places; combining different initiatives; identifying common needs/exchange; and critically reflecting on our own educational practices.

The challenges included: centre/periphery, urban/rural differences, shifts to the right; the uncertainty of smaller memorial sites regarding political/social and right-wing hostilities; differences between child/youth work and memorial work.

The things they would like to continue working on included: exchanges on methods; collegial exchange; incorporating the diverse perspectives of victims; further networking (nationwide); space for interaction; pass on findings to their institutions.

After the event, the project team members will evaluate the series among themselves and continue discussing this feedback.

Our colleague Dr. Linda Giesel then presented the initial results of her project ‘Creating structures against antisemitism at memorial sites’, which is also based at the GHWK. To this end, she evaluated antisemitic incidents at our institution and classified them according to different forms of antisemitism. She highlighted how employees at the institution responded to the incidents. She also noted a sharp increase in antisemitic comments in our guest book after 7 October.

She encouraged us to discuss how memorial sites should deal with antisemitic incidents and what structures for dealing with this were already in place. Participants cited the reporting options in their institutions. It was noted that individual mechanisms already exist, but that they need to be implemented and integrated more strongly. She invited the network participants to continue thinking about this together. In this way, she opened up perspectives for continuing to work on the issue.

Four workshops, designed by the Education and Research Department staff and their network partners, were held after the lunch break. The workshops tied in previous events and explored topics that we had already been touched on in 2025: What perspectives do second- and third-generation Shoah survivors have on the new forms of antisemitism emerging after 7 October? How can we implement quality standards in our work for critical educational methods addressing antisemitism? How can we make networking between larger and smaller institutions more effective? How can we introduce contemporary references to our educational work to make it more relevant to today?

Towards the end, the group met again in plenary, with the workshop leaders highlighting the main points of the group discussions, after which the groups discussed how to continue working together.

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The next day, 29 January 2026, some of the participants travelled to Zbąszyn, Poland, the main site of the tragic ‘Poland Action’ of 1938.

Upon arrival, Wojciech Olejniczak, director of the regional museum, took us to the former border and the railway station and presented the local perspectives on both sides of the border. At the site, he described how the local population reacted to thousands of Jews being deported to Zbąszyń. Local aid committees were formed and the people who had been deported tried to obtain visas that would allow them to leave the town.

At the museum, Hanna Gospodarczyk presented the work of our partner, Forum for Dialogue. Afterwards, we took a walk through the town with Anita Ruciol-Gołek and 15 students from the ‘Szkola Dialogu’. The students gave an impressive presentation on how the people deported in the ‘Poland Action’ and the Jewish population are remembered today.