Stiftung Brandenburgische Gedenkstätten Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen

Extended Seminars and Projects

The Memorial offers seminars and projects lasting several days on the history of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp or the Soviet special camp. These are tailored to the needs and interests of the participants. In our extended seminars and projects, the participants develop their own questions about history and pursue them together. Various methods allow for research, discussions and reflection.

Methods from the fields of cultural, media and memorial site education enable a special form of independent and reflective examination of the historical site and its history. At least four full days should be planned for cultural and media education seminars. No previous knowledge is required, techniques are taught in the seminar.

    Seminars lasting several days can be made up of the following modules:

    • Introduction: The Sachsenhausen concentration camp in the context of NS history
    • Introduction: Testimonies and sources from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp
    • Guided tour through the Sachsenhausen Memorial
    • Workshops with thematic focus
    • Visit of the KZ subcamp clinker factory memorial site
    • Cycle tour: The Sachsenhausen concentration camp and the town of Oranienburg
    • Additional module: And if I don't feel anything...? Remembering and commemorating today
    • Design of a commemoration ceremony
    • Excursion to Berlin: Memorial signs in the cityscape

    Media education seminars – “History Maps Online”

    The focus of the seminar history.maps.online is on the spatial dimension of the history of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. With the help of materials and exhibitions, the participants deal with various aspects of the history of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. They present their results in a digital map on a Weblog.

    Geographically localizing the biographies of persecuted persons, the work commandos and the satellite camps of Sachsenhausen concentration camp in a multimedia map makes it clear that the history of Sachsenhausen concentration camp is not limited to the area of today's memorial site, but extends far beyond it to Germany and all of Europe. In the course of the seminar, participants will learn how to use texts, photos, videos or sounds to tell history in a vivid and source-based way.

    Cultural education seminars – “Art, Space, Memory”

    Visiting the Memorial and absorbing the history of the place can evoke emotions, sensory perceptions and impressions that are often difficult to express in words.In this seminar the participants express their thoughts through artistic means and reflect together on their personal involvement with the site and its history.

    This may take the form of creating comics, analogue photos taken with a home-made pinhole camera, sound collages, texts or sculptures, allowing impressions and emotions to be expressed beyond the barriers of language and offered up for discussion.

    Researching history on site – project week in a satellite camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp

    Numerous smaller and larger satellite camps of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp were set up in Berlin and Brandenburg during the 1940s, where concentration camp inmates were used as forced labour by the SS or by private firms. To this day little is known about many of these camps. What we want to do is encourage young people to explore this history on their own doorsteps.

    Whether it’s a project week or a workshop supporting a school project, we can help you do your own research. To get you started on your own research there is an introduction to the topics of forced labour and satellite camps in the Nazi era. The project also includes research in the Sachsenhausen Memorial and tips on using other archives and talking to experts. You can present your findings in various ways, such as a public presentation, a newspaper article, a commemorative plaque on the site or a website.

    In the überLAGERt project of the Brandenburg state youth organization, you will find examples of research on satellite camps and satellite commandos of the Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps.