Historical-political education at the Flossenbürg Memorial – Chances, Challenges, Limits
Julius Scharnetzky, M.A. – Educational Department Flossenbürg Memorial
22nd of September 2016, “Connecting Law and Memory”, Mechelen (Belgium)
Today, there is a broad consensus in our society that the National Socialist past is an integral part of German history. This goes along with the insight that the places representing National Socialist injustice are of high importance and should be preserved. This appreciation – which is not self-evident at all – is not alone based on the historical significance of National Socialism, but on the importance we attach to this topic and the places with regard to our present and future. The example of the former Flossenbürg concentration camp reveals that dealing with the National Socialist past was not always a matter of course in (Western) Germany.
In spring 1938, Flossenbürg, a small village in the rural Northern Bavaria close to the Czechoslovak border, is chosen by the SS as location for the foundation of a new concentration camp. The determining factor for the choice of site is the existence of rich granite deposits. Starting from the second half of the war, the Flossenbürg concentration camp develops, like other main camps, into the epicentre of a widely dispersed auxiliary camp system. The headquarters in Flossenbürg administrate 90 subcamps situated in 80 localities in Bavaria, Saxony and within the territory of what is now the Czech Republic. Between 1938 and 1945, approximately 100.000 men and women are interned in the Flossenbürg camp complex. They come from all over Europe, especially from Poland and the former Soviet Union. Only one-tenth of them comes from Germany or the annexed Austria. The reasons why they are persecuted by the National Socialist regime are as diverse as their biographies: their national ancestry, their political attitude, their way of life and/ or their religion. Approximately 30.000 people do not survive their detention: they are murdered or die, among other reasons, of hunger and exhaustion, hard physical work, diseases. After US-American troops have liberated the camp in April 1945, the US military administration uses the terrain of the former prisoners‘ area as a camp for Displaced Persons. The Catholic Poles who are accommodated there have nothing to do with the former camp. They are survivors of the Mauthausen concentration camp or former civil forced labourers. However, it is because of the persecution they experienced personally that they commit themselves to the honouring of the site. Due to their initiative, a memorial is established in 1946/ 1947 in a part of the former camp territory. The memorial site „Valley of Death“ is the first one in Bavaria and among the first in Europe at the site of a former concentration camp.
Consequently, Flossenbürg is not only one of the main places where crimes of the National Socialist politics of exclusion and extermination were committed. It is also of a high value with regard to history of remembrance. Nevertheless, the former Flossenbürg concentration camp disappears almost completely from public awareness for more than 50 years, and with it, the memory of the people who suffered in the camp complex. Although, or rather since the early memorial site „Valley of Death“ is enlarged by a cemetery of honour in the 1950s, other parts of the former camp are used for industrial purposes, houses are built on the bases of the barracks, the camp quarry is let for rent. These actions do not cause public protests in the German population. Compared to other former camp sites, for example Dachau, there is no lobby campaigning for the Flossenbürg memorial.
Only the commitment coming from civil society in the course of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the camp is capable of conceding a place within commemorative consciousness to the European site of Memory of Flossenbürg. Within the last 20 years, the terrain of the former concentration camp has developed from a pure burial site into a working memorial, a process which has often been hard-fought. Two modern and award-winning exhibits inform the visitors about the history of the site before and after 1945. A historical department provides information. The Education Centre which was opened in 2015 offers groups the opportunity to deal critically with the history of National Socialism and the region according to their respective interests.
The requirements the society places on the memorials as sites of learning and remembrance are manifold. In the framework of the study „Discover the Past for the Future“ conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, the ministries of Education of the five surveyed German Federal Länder (Bavaria, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North-Rhine Westphalia) name the most important aims they relate to visits to memorials. They can be divided into two categories: (1.) Transmission of historical knowledge (knowledge about the site, the country, the Holocaust) and (2.) establishing a link to the present (development of anti-racist attitudes, democratic values and human rights education). In 2010, the then State Minister for culture Bernd Neumann expresses as well that memorials are „ outstanding sites for democracy and human rights education“. „Learning from history“/ learning from the crimes shall contribute to building up and protecting a culture of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Memorials in Germany are by now desirable and financed sites of learning, and so the expectations are high. One can mainly observe when communicating with the teachers that these demands are adopted, be it in the preparation of the visits to the memorials or within the framework of continuing education seminars. The young people shall experience the horror of the camp in an emotional and cognitive way. Looking into the abyss of civilization shall lead them to adopt democratic attitudes respectively reconsider antidemocratic ones.
The idea of memorials being sites of human rights education seems to be obvious. The crimes committed in the concentration camps are crimes against humanity and thereby also against the human rights. Especially those of the first generation. The forms of violation are manifold: discrimination, deprivation of rights, incarceration, forced labour, abuse, torture and murder.
„Not only did we lose our clothing here, but our souls. “ This sentence expressed by the Italian survivor Vittore Bocchetta is one of the essential memories of former inmates of the Flossenbürg camp complex. This one sentence describes the inmates‘ situation on their arrival at the camp – they were robbed of their identity, of their rights, of their dignity. The deprivation of legal rights entitled to every human being by birth, as well as the dehumanization beginning with the registration of the new inmates, are both essential for the SS domination of the camp. The daily interaction between the inmates and the SS is predicated on this total lack of rights.
Work at concentration camp memorial sites bases upon the aim to represent the former inmates in a dignified manner. Hannah Arendt’s estimation that every human being must be given the „right to have rights“ is immanent to our work. However, this is not human rights education yet. Most concentration camp memorials in Germany would not describe themselves as sites of human rights education in the first instance. The memorials at the locations of former concentration camps are not only sites of education but also sites of remembrance. Places where human beings were tortured and murdered. Places similar to graveyards. Educational work at concentration camp memorials may thus be described primarily as historical education. First of all, it wants to transmit the narration of the history of the site – the perspectives of the persecuted, the perpetrators and the environments -, the interpretation of the few historical relics preserved and the way of dealing with history after 1945. Historical education is only expanded by the aspect of political learning by connecting it with questions to the present. This link to the present is necessary because the pure knowledge about the crimes does not suffice to comprehend that democratic values and structures deserve protection.
Against the background of this context which is specific for concentration camp memorials, I am of the opinion that we must ask critically to what extent this demand for human rights education can be fulfilled at such places. At least if it is taken seriously as a separate domain within the educational work. The sociologist Monique Eckmann describes the three essential dimensions of Human Rights education: (1.) Learning about Human Rights, (2.) learning for Human Rights and (3.) learning through Human Rights. This is a complex learning process that should go beyond the visit to the memorial. Both the National Socialist politics of exclusion and extermination and the human rights are complex learning topics. You need well-thought-out concepts and especially time to connect them. Otherwise, it will not be possible to do justice to either of both learning topics, but produce shortened analogies. In practice, it is not the elaborated concepts that are missing, often it is time that is lacking. Although the „remembrance of the negative“ is social consensus in Germany and the visits to memorials are recommended or even prescribed by the curricula, only a small part of the groups stays longer at the memorial than for a guided tour.
Some five percent of the groups of visitors of the Flossenbürg memorial do not book the regular two or three hours guided tours. Against this background, an explicit human rights education is not possible from my point of view, some elements, however, can be integrated. Before explaining this issue referring to programmes for occupational groups (Berufsgruppen), I would like to present you our self-concept in matters of educational programmes in general. This is also relevant to the specific seminars for occupational groups.
Monique Eckmann describes learning through human rights as a learning environment that is conform (würdig) to the human rights. Every educational seminar should follow democratic learning processes that respect the human rights. Be it the two hours guided tour or a seminar lasting several days, each of our programmes focusses and respects the particular group with its members and their different perspectives and experiences. We realize our programmes based on the participants‘ conceptions of history and experiences. This is how we increase their motivation to deal with the topic and encourage them to make links with current questions, but also with their own living environment. Moreover, we can break up defensive demeanours concerning a topic that seems to be omnipresent in German public and where everything seems to have already been said.
For this, it is important to re-evaluate the historical contents and their weighting, and it is important to accept that we must take leave of the wish to impart as much knowledge as possible. We rather give those who participate in the educational programmes room to articulate their interests and attitudes and thus shape the programme according to their needs. The participants as subjects are put into the centre of the learning process instead of being regarded as objects with alleged deficits of knowledge or attitudes. The chosen materials, questions as well as the perception of the site encourage the participants to start conversations which are facilitated by the guides (RGL). A future teacher taking part in a continuing education seminar wrote down in a feedback form answering to the question „What could we improve in the future? the following statement: „During the guided tour I would have liked to get more information; questions were mainly answered by the listeners“. For me, this comment which should certainly be constructive criticism is rather a compliment. However, it becomes clear that participants may feel uncertain because of this concept of focussing on the group and diverging from the established hierarchy that normally exists in educational contexts. The individual has an increasing responsibility to play a part in this process of knowledge transfer.
The desire for historical information cannot be denied. It is necessary to impart a certain degree of knowledge to be able to discuss the topic with the group. The contents are therefore as important as the methods. The narration about the National Socialist crimes can make the listener feel insecure because of its dimensions; it may as well obstruct one’s view on the everyday violations of human rights. Concentration camp memorials are an evidence of the crimes and therefore, they are not neutral places. For several decades, educational work at memorials used large-size pictures of corpses or emaciated bodies. The chosen stories should revive emotionally the horror of the camps. But because of their brutality, they were beyond imagination. By now, we have chosen different ways. We follow the principles of political education formulated in Beutelsbach in 1976. We respect the imperative of not to overwhelm our visitors and not to manipulate them emotionally in order to make them adopt opinions and behaviours that are socially desirable.
So the key question is how to speak about topics such as violence, arbitrariness, dying and death and how to present the places that are connected with these issues. Instead of presenting violence explicitly we mainly broach the issue of different forms of structural violence. For example, what influence does the striped clothing have on the inmates of the concentration camps? Not being able to wash oneself and one’s clothes – what does this mean for a person? What are the effects of being permanently hungry? All these are forms of violence in the camps which can show the living conditions without evoking pictures of blood and mistreated bodies in the people’s minds. Those are mostly already present anyway. Moreover, this form of narration offers points of contact to the personal living environment.
The narration about the site must bring up the stories of those who suffered in the camps. But we do not limit them to their role as victims of the National Socialist politics of exclusion. We show them as human beings with feelings who act and think. Human beings with more or less ordinary biographies, who would probably not have been persecuted in another political system. There is Marie-Thérèse Fainstein from France who talks about the sanitary conditions and that she always tried to wash herself and her clothes in order to preserve her humanity. Charles Dekeyser from Belgium reports on the pangs of hunger. Samuel Brückner from Cologne states that he only survived because of his unshakeable faith in God. Dealing with the persecuted persons in this way shows them as human beings and not only as living skeletons who seem to have lost all what is human. This enables the participants to develop empathy.
If you want to represent the crimes in an adequate way, you must also speak about those who committed these crimes. We make clear that the criminal acts were not only perpetrated by sadistic exceptions or blind subordinates. In fact, these crimes were committed by men and women who often considered their acts to be unproblematic because they were legitimized by ideology, state and society. Besides the individual dimension of perpetration and the scope of action, it is important to point out that the National Socialist politics of exclusion and extermination were mass atrocities.
It might be confusing to locate the perpetrators inside the social normality, since they seem to be closer to us than we have ever expected them to be. However, this irritation should be seen as a chance. Racism, anti-Semitism, discrimination, chauvinism, partially unquestioned actions, lack of sympathy for the others – these phenomena are not exclusively National Socialist, but they are part of public and social everyday practices in democratic societies, too. They generate manifold violations of human rights. Large sections of our societies are quickly willing to deny others their rights. Especially those who left their home countries because of acts of war and/ or economic difficulties. Dealing with perpetration and society in the context of the National Socialist crimes can help people understand that National Socialism may be relevant even after more than 70 years. But even if the National Socialist crimes were crimes against the human rights, not all violations of the human rights can be seen as crimes against humanity or result in genocides. So when dealing with the National Socialist crimes, those should not obstruct our view on the large number of daily violations of the human rights.
However, the dimension „Learning about human rights“ can only partially be fulfilled by working on the historical subject. If you want to cope with the topic completely, it is crucial to deal with the complex genesis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, too. But there is not enough time for this within the scope of the programmes. In matters of the dimension „Learning for human rights“, we can assume that the motivation to stand up for human rights is possibly increasing. However, the participants may at best be merely encouraged to develop decision-making responsibilities.
Specific seminars for members of different occupational groups have been part of the regular programme of the Flossenbürg memorial for several years. Up to now, they are available for health care professionals and members of the police. In small groups, the participants discuss the involvement of their occupational groups in the National Socialist crimes. Topics and questions refer to the historical context in general and in particular to the site of the former concentration camp. This is how the participants are enabled to ask questions about historical forms and mechanisms of discrimination, exclusion and violence. They analyse their professional self-image and the norms that form the basis of their occupation. In doing so, the participants are often surprised to realize that their professional branches which were key actors of the National Socialist crimes legitimated their actions through professional norms that are at the basis of these professions even today. Norms that had already been valid before 1933. In the Weimar Republic, the police were an important pillar of the governmental power, and they kept being it in National Socialism after stripping of the democratic structures. In the time, taking part in a multitude of crimes was not contradictory to the police‘ traditional role. Towards the „Volksgenossen“, the „National comrades“, they kept acting as friends and helpers in order to protect them from those who were excluded from the community and were placed outside the law because of their ancestry, race, religion, social behaviour. The police cooperated with other government agencies, scientists and jurists on the development of definitions of who was an opponent, and also on the forms of exclusion and on the participation of terror and murder.
Even today, government institutions in the narrower sense (police) and in the broader sense (health care) have considerable power because of their mission. Moreover, they are structured in a strictly hierarchic way, with instructions being given from top to bottom. The officially communicated professional concept is often accompanied by a divergent culture influencing the concrete actions. Intentional or subconscious violations of fundamental or human rights are the consequence. The programmes sensitize the participants to recognize these structures, to reflect critically, to look for scopes of actions and re-evaluate actions according to their professional concept.
I have to state that so far, we have been working with trainees of both occupational groups. Whereas the health care trainees often already have gained some practical experience when visiting the memorial, the police cadets have not due to the course of their training. That is why the pictures/ ideas the police cadets bring to the seminars are mainly based on the contents of their training and their private everyday lifes. Student nurses, however, who have already gained some practical experience, also take up questions of their professional routine. What is important to them is how fully trained colleagues use to act and to what extent instructions of superiors are binding. Using the example of the nurses in the Ravensbrück concentration camp who participated in experiments on humans, we raise questions concerning issues such as participation, motivations, initiative, division of labour, scopes of actions, refusal. In the beginning, most of the participants assume that the women had no choise. They refer to the traditional relationship between doctor and nursing staff and to the alleged necessity to obey orders. During a longer discussion process we finally debate the options for action at that time as well as the consequences of refusing. This enables the future nursing staff to talk about responsibility in everyday situations. It becomes evident that not only instructions from above, but also the people’s own ethical attitudes can determine personal actions, with the democratic constitutional system protecting the individual.
Working with the student nurses and police cadets shows us that orienting the seminar contents to the role of the professions during National Socialism motivates the participants to deal with the National Socialist past. By now, the topic is an integral part of the curricula of both occupational groups. It is not reduced to history respectively civics lessons, but is partially expanded into subjects like professional ethics or – in the case of the police – communication and conflict resolution. In the end, it is the teachers who decide how intensely they will work on this topic within the training. We hardly know how much importance the participants of the workshops attach to the visit to the memorial. The police cadets who were the first to take part in the programmes four years ago have finished their training by now. Looking back on this training, several of them declared that one of the things they still have positive memories of is this visit to the memorial. From our perspective, it would be desirable to work with such groups within the scope of advanced vocational trainings as well.
Educational work at concentration camp memorials is historical-political education that can integrate some dimensions of human rights education. Above all, visiting a memorial site can sensitize people for the culture of the human rights. Human rights education with all its dimensions can only be possible at memorials if it is done in cooperation with other educational institutions and if it is not bound to a too strict time frame.
Even if memorials in Germany are a social consensus by now, we are dealing with the question if the National Socialist past is still relevant for our society after more than 70 years. Memorials in Germany as public institutions should not only serve to legitimate a democratic social system, but be relevant for the living together in our society. In practice, we realize to an increasing degree that many of our visitors are not connected to history any longer due to their age or their ancestry. For them, National Socialism is just one more chapter in a history book. Our work should take into account the changing conditions and tie in with our visitors‘ experiences and realities of life. At the same time, what we should do at the memorials, which are places of injustice and violence, is create spaces where you can basically speak about experiences of discrimination, exclusion, violence and war.
We are already discussing the role and the contributions of memorials within the framework of current political and social challenges as we are experiencing them in Europe and worldwide right now, and we will continue doing it. From my point of view, besides a high degree of professionalism, focussing on participative forms of learning and target group orientation, we must keep on surveying the importance of the historical site and the historical knowledge that is to be transmitted and the possible degree of actualisation. What contributions can we make against the background of the specific learning contexts at memorials? And how can we, at the same time, always do justice to the central concern of concentration camp memorials that is representing the site in an adequate way and paying tribute to the victims?
