At the beginning of the 2021/22 school year, eight pupils from the 7th and 8th grades of the Gymnasium Bad Königshofen decided to take part in the nationwide competition of the Federal Agency for Civic Education with the plus course “Experiencing History and Politics”.
To do this, they had to create a multimedia presentation on the subject of “Tracking down Jewish life” in the chosen category together with the supervising teacher Katharina Lehmann by the Christmas holidays.
The students decided to start locally in Bad Königshofen and look for traces of Jewish life. It quickly became apparent that the city can look back on a lively Jewish history, the remains of which can still be found in a few places. A plaque commemorates the location of the destroyed synagogue on Bamberger Strasse, which the students explored immediately. A visit to the Jewish cemetery followed. Photographs were taken for the presentation and at the same time it became apparent that there were still many unanswered questions about Jewish history in Bad Königshofen.
Therefore, the young people continued their research and collected historical photographs, illustrated books, the city chronicle and other material to inform themselves. Even seminar papers from the last few years from the subject of history were viewed and valuable information was extracted. A city map by the history teacher StD Rainer Seelmann, which he kindly made available to the group together with other materials, should be used in the presentation, e.g. B. show how many Jewish families lived and worked in very different professions in Bad Königshofen. Here, however, the students also realized that the terrible crimes of National Socialism, which culminated in the Holocaust in the planned, factory-like annihilation of the Jewish population in Europe, had to be explained. The reasons for the underlying worldview of anti-Semitism also had to be worked out. But how can you put so much suffering and misanthropy into sober words and analyses?
That’s when the idea came up to create a presentation for the lower school in order to sensitively explain exactly this fruitful part of German history. Without further ado, the decision was made to shoot our own explanatory film in order to make the difficult connections clear. Pictures were sought, texts were written, figures were drawn and reading aloud was practiced. “What actually is anti-Semitism?” The resulting film answers this question by linking history and the present: because one thing became clear to the students during their research: anti-Semitism is not only a problem of history, it also affects the lives of today Jews. The young people realized: we have to make people understand that this is wrong. Jewish life is valuable – then and now!
So the members of the plus course decided to find an interview partner to whom they could ask all their questions. But time was of the essence as the deadline approached and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic prevented an in-person meeting. Fortunately, Mr. Alexander Shif, the youth officer of Shalom Europe in Würzburg, was willing to conduct the interview in the form of a video conference. The students thought carefully about the questions they wanted to ask and shared them among themselves. It became a detailed, fascinating conversation about the personal history of the interviewee, his work as a youth worker and what being Jewish means to him. In this atmosphere of trust, questions about exclusion and anti-Semitism were also possible, which he answered openly. The openness and the positive atmosphere enabled everyone to have an extensive and profitable exchange.
In the end, everything “only” had to be put together, arranged and the text of the presentation recorded. Here, too, the students sacrificed free afternoons and weekends, as before, in order to create a result that explains, makes clear, shows examples and, above all, makes every listener understand how valuable Jewish life is and how enriching it is for us Everyone!
The young people and their teacher are all the happier about the prize and the prize of €1000, which they will use for an excursion and their further research.
By: Katharina Lehmann OStRin, for the Gymnasium Bad Königshofen
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