“Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed“ (Preamble to the UNESCO Constitution). We strive to embody this preamble through this project and in the light of the current influx of war refugees from countries like Syria into European countries, we strongly believe that young minds are constantly challenged into upholding the meaning of peace and eventually, defending the concept of peace regardless of their origin. History is almost always integrated into the core curriculum of the education system in Europe but we envisage that this project will provide students with a hands-on approach to learning and discovering the many stories which may soon be unheard. First-hand accounts of eyewitnesses of WW2 have more impact than just words written in text books and this is essentially the basis of this project – keeping stories alive by engaging the young generation. Oral history is a method that is used by many historians and organizations. However, as oral history is time-consuming, most teachers do not have the time to focus on this method of collecting historical information or data. Hence, we believe that this project can enhance students’ understanding of the past by giving them the opportunity to interact face-to-face with war witnesses from different European countries. Listening to stories from another perspective help students to instil the acceptation of other perceptions, views, values and a greater understanding in the historical events that happened during WWII. Prior to the interview, they have to carry out investigation and historical analysis and upon completion of the interview, students will go through the process of recording the interviews, subtitling and managing the data and accessibility of these interviews using an online portal. Activities in the digitisation process will essentially contribute to students’ knowledge of conducting oral history research in the digital age.With this in mind, we require students who are technically sound, motivated and near competent communicators. In addition, inquisitiveness, open-mindedness, creativity and a strong desire to learn are some of the qualities that we look for in students. These will serve as our key indicators in students’ recruitment. 10-12 students will be selected from each partner school in which younger students will be facilitated by older students, who also supervise and assist teachers in various processes of this project. This may enchance students' autonomy.The initial stage of this project is the recruitment of interviewers (students) and interviewees (eyewitnesses), as well as learning how to conduct an interview within the scope of oral history. Simultaneously, they analyse and investigate the period of the Second World War in their own country. In preparation of the exchange visits, students from host countries will visit the eyewitnesses who they plan to interview and prepare a program for their guests. During this exchange visit, students from visiting countries will be exposed to the events and places (through excursions) that were of importance during the war in the country they are visiting. Interviews with war witnesses will be the primary activity in these visits. At the end of each visit, students work on the composition of online magazines which will accumulate all information, analysis and experiences during their visit. A similar activity was conducted during a student exchange program held in March this year, between CCNV and ITS Kennedy in Pordenone (see Annex 4).In terms of methodology, the composition of the database with 200-250 interviews (in three batches) is the key activity of this project. Validation of the results of each batch will enable us to fine-tune the procedure for the next batch(es). Our methodology for recording and storing the interviews is based on existing guidelines in the field of Oral History to ensure that the database is in accordance with existing research in this field, as well as the protection of IPR and privacy issues. In the long run, the results i.e. interviews will be kept in a database which will be of benefit for various organizations such as schools and local historical community that envision the same ideas that we have. The impact on students, on the other hand is perhaps greater than we envisage: as well as having been able to be part of working in an inter-cultural community and setting, they will develop a sense of deeper understanding of the impact of not only the Second World War, but also wars in general. It is without doubt that this project will serve as a platform for all the forgotten stories to be re-lived and be passed on to the younger generation. Above all, we believe that a project like this will contribute to the mutual comprehension and respect among European citizens, which is an indispensable quality for our future leaders.
“Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed“ (Preamble to the UNESCO Constitution). We strive to embody this preamble through this project and in the light of the current influx of war refugees from countries like Syria into European countries, we strongly believe that young minds are constantly challenged into upholding the meaning of peace and eventually, defending the concept of peace regardless of their origin. History is almost always integrated into the core curriculum of the education system in Europe but we envisage that this project will provide students with a hands-on approach to learning and discovering the many stories which may soon be unheard. First-hand accounts of eyewitnesses of WW2 have more impact than just words written in text books and this is essentially the basis of this project – keeping stories alive by engaging the young generation. With this goal in mind, we started the project in September 2016 with three partners: Poland, Finland and Greece. Italy was one of our partners but their application was unfortunately turned down. Due to this unexpected change, we had to reshuffle and analyse the number of LTTAs and TPMs and other roles and activities that would be feasible with 4 partners, instead of 5. Nevertheless, the expertise as well as enthusiasm from each remaining partner country did not deter the project and we believe that we have managed to achieve the main objectives of the project. A detailed description of each activity pursued by all partners of this project can be seen in annex 1. During this project, we managed to seek assistance and where possible, partnership from organisations related to the theme and subject of this project. An expert in Oral History (Dr Susan Hogervorst), the senior education employee attached to the National Comité 4 en 5 mei (Ms Sarah Feirabend), the foundation of oktober 44 in Putten (Stichting oktober 44), the Landelijk Steunpunt Gastsprekers WOII - heden, the city council of Harderwijk, the city library and ASEF Classroom Network were some of the organisations that we approached in various forms, mainly through workshops and presentations either during the transnational project meetings or a study day or conference. The main activity that each partner school did was interviews with witnesses of World War 2. All interviews have been subtitled and uploaded to YouTube, in which the links have been shared onto the project website (http://www.ohie.eu). These interviews were carried out by students and each story or interview is related to an event that was significant to the interviewee of that particular country. Throughout the interviews, we also developed oral history guidelines, factsheets, Joomag online magazines, lesson plans and materials for teachers who would like to use the interviews on the website during his/her lesson. The products have been uploaded to the Erasmus+ project results platform. Throughout the project, we organised transnational project meetings with teachers and student exchanges with students. During each TPM, we incorporated two elements: checks on the progress by each partner and setting deadlines of each target, as well as cultural excursions that are related to WWII, whereas each student exchange was focused on the history and local history of that particular partner country (cultural excursions), the intercultural activities (students participated in several activities planned by students and teachers of the host country) and workshop/seminars/presentations/interview with a witness/expert of Oral History. We believe that we have achieved the results that we aimed for. Our main product is the online database but most importantly, the stories of the witnesses who were interviewed are now accessible for everyone. They are no longer stories that can only be passed on to the next generations of their own families, but also to everyone across the world. Moreover, the stories from each witness puts the WWII into context: students have a better understanding of what happened during WWII from the perspective of someone who has witnessed it first hand. The stories are more vivid and relatable to the students as most of the witnesses were either as old as or about as old as our students during WWII. Furthermore, the stories 'make more sense' to students as they are not 'second hand' stories that you get from another source; they are 'real' stories from 'real' people. We can honestly say that the impact on our students is a lot greater than we had anticipated. A newspaper article about our students' experience precisely illustrates this impact (see annex 2). In the future, we would like to use the database as a central point for all WWII and other stories for our school network. In 2020, we also wish to propose an ASEF Classroom Network project which utilises the database that we already have. This will be useful for both teachers and students.