Older migrants, who came to the Netherlands in the 1960s and, for instance, worked at Melkunie and the Fokker factory, will tell their stories in the classroom. This is to highlight migrant life and bring history to the attention of schoolchildren. ‘Without them, the Dutch economy was never strong as it is today,’ said project initiator Sahin Yildirim.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Netherlands suffered a severe labour shortage. After first attracting guest workers from countries such as Italy, Spain, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey, an influx of workers from Morocco emerged in the late 1960s.

‘Migrant elders have been through a lot. From a different country and culture, they set out to pioneer and build a better future. What was that like? What did they leave behind and what did they find in the Netherlands? The project ‘Life stories of migrant elderly in the classroom’ deals with stories of migrant elderly people and gives them a stage where they can be proud of their life stories. Through guest lessons in schools, we aim to introduce pupils/schoolchildren to the concept of ‘migration’ , ‘culture’, ‘heritage’ and the history of migrant elders from their city. We believe that telling these stories contributes to a sense of one’s own identity and that we live in a society of peace, solidarity and freedom,’ Sahin Yildirim said.

Lesson on migration

‘Through guest lessons in schools, we want to introduce pupils to the concept of migration and the history of migrant grandparents from their city. The children then interview these grandparents and their stories are recorded. The stories are thus given back to the elderly and shared as widely as possible with residents of the city,’ says Yildirim. ‘By capturing these migration stories, we bring our common history into focus and generate attention to migration in general and migrant elders in particular.’

Texel was the site of the Russians’ War during WWII: an uprising by Georgian soldiers of the Wehrmacht against the Germans. These Georgians became part of the Wehrmacht as prisoners of war against their will and stationed in the Netherlands.

The site Russenoorlog.nl provides a clear overview of the historical events on the island that eventually became known as the Russ War in which a total of over 1,000 people died. The sites features short videos of witnesses, maps and a description of daily events. The Georgian uprising is relatively unknown outside Texel, which is partly why Nemo has also created a website about the events on Texel.

Click here for the site.

As one of the largest and most important museums and memorial centres on the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) has an extensive range of educational materials on the Holocaust, both for online teaching and for use in the classroom. In addition to targeted lesson plans for every educational level, the museum’s website has an impressive Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust and hundreds of (primary) resources and photographs on the Holocaust are freely accessible, and translated into English where necessary.

The encyclopaedia contains all kinds of information, about people, places, events and developments. In a very accessible way, this information can be used via images, sound and video for both inside and outside the classroom.

The documentary “Auschwitz, our story” is available for screening in educational institutions!

Only teachers of educational institutions (highest grade primary and middle, secondary, higher education) can request access to a private section of the site, which includes the 40-minute documentary and the document with background information and an educational lesson with questions on two levels.

Are you a teacher? Don’t hesitate and request access by sending an email to onsverhaal@smolinski.nl from the school’s email account. Then you can view the content and use it in class. Do you already have a password? Then click here..

The documentary can also be found via the “Op School” menu.

N.B. Students who want to see more interviews or write a thesis can also be referred to the “Interviews” page on the website.

The documentary ‘Traces of the East Indies’ tells national history through local examples. Special teaching materials have been developed for use by schools nationwide.

Lesson Package Primary Education

Karlijn Naaijkens has developed a special lesson series for PO: three 30- to 40-minute lessons for groups 7 and 8.

Lesson Package Secondary education

Alex Heeringa developed the lesson package for secondary education: three 60-minute lessons for every level, to be adapted by the teacher, but usually suitable from 3 HAVO.

All teaching packages are designed by Evelien Kalberg.

In times when racism, anti-Semitism and polarisation are all around you, it is important to make these difficult topics discussable as early and well as possible. After the War therefore tells the family stories of World War II to children and young people to confront them with discrimination and dehumanisation on a large scale.  In such a way that the story gets under your skin, so to speak.

From the power of the personal story, our guest speakers make a link to contemporary social developments; in the world, the Netherlands, the classroom and with the students himself. Ultimately, it is about how the student relates to issues such as racism and polarisation. That is where we hold up a mirror to them.

In order for our guest speakers to be prepared, they develop their stories in text, form and image under professional guidance. During this process, which lasts more than four months, their presentation and teaching skills are trained.

A guest lesson at After the War consists of a visual story, a reflection in the form of a conversation/discussion and an active component.

What will the young people do?

• The young people talk to each other about what freedom means to them.
• They will learn how to use your the smartphone, create a photo art piece, an animation or a video about freedom.

How will they do it?

• They take a picture about their own sense of freedom.
• Make a short stop-motion movie about a freedom theme that is important to them.
• Make a short film based on quotes from oral history interviews with veterans, refugees and people who have lived through war. They incorporate those quotes into their own short film.

What do you understand by freedom?

Have all young people say (to themselves) in keywords what they mean by freedom.

On a large sheet of paper write down the keywords.

Now walk through the words and ask for their meaning and have the young people give examples.

Alternative form:

Each person writes keywords individually on Post-its. The Post-its you collect stick on a wall. For each key word, the young person explains what exactly is meant.

16 fragments about freedom. Each with a specific perspective on freedom. 

They are fragments from the oral history collections of Ongekend bijzonder, Veteranen vertellen en Getuigenverhalen / Oorlogsbronnen.

These fragments are meant as inspiration to interpret the concept of freedom yourself. 

After listening to an excerpt, have a short conversation.

What does freedom mean to the interviewee?

Do you hear any new concepts around freedom?

Compare the concepts with those from Round 1

In Round 3, the youth will work with their smartphones to represent the meaning of the concept of freedom.

The texts below are addressed directly to the youth. They can view this section on their smartphones, for example, so they can easily download the apps. 

Take a picture

Use your cell phone to take a picture that expresses what freedom means to you.

Edit your photo

Edit your photo with a free photo editing app to make it more expressive.

Snapseed

[The group facilitator/teacher explains the basics]

Present your photo

Show your photo to the other young people.

They tell what they see in the picture, what they think the picture expresses.

You tell what you meant by it.

Have you heard surprising things?

Is there a difference in explanation? Is that a bad thing?

Think of a short story about freedom that you want to portray.

In preparation, use a storyboard to put your story into scenes.

Making stop-motion animation

Create a stop-motion video with a free app.

Stop Motion Studio

[The group facilitator/teacher explains the basics]

Use the quotes from Round 2 to visualize a story.

Use a storyboard to prepare your story in scenes/video clips.

Take video footage with your own phone to tell the story

and/or

Find clips on the Internet to represent your story.

Creating / editing video

Use a free video app to paste everything together and make transitions between clips.

OpenShoot-Video Editor of iMovie

or Canva

[The group facilitator/teacher explains the basics]

Think of a fun way to present the products to each other or a wider audience.

For inspiration, here is an example of young people from the Schilderswijk neighborhood who went through this program together with refugees from The Hague.

The resulting digital exihibition was shown at Sound ad Vision The Hague.

Background

Many oral history interviews have been conducted in which freedom is directly or indirectly discussed. Based on those interviews, we will take a closer look at questions such as:

What is freedom really and how do people live in freedom?

Are there limits to freedom and what does freedom mean in a more collective sense?

What is the meaning of the democratic rule of law when it comes to freedom?

What are the mechanisms that undermine freedom and how can you recognize them?

Freedom is a topic of great interest to young people but whose scope they sometimes find difficult to grasp. This is especially true when it comes to the conditions that make it possible for us to live in freedom.
In the Social Service Pathways that have been developed in recent years for young people, there are programs, in which the focus is not on doing volunteer work, but on the personal development of the young people. In these programs, young people first explore the important question: Who am I? To then devise activities they want to carry out in their neighborhood. A theme such as freedom and the stories of people who have experienced not being able to live in freedom confront young people with a side of existence that is often new to them. The program includes visits to Westerbork, Camp Vught and the like. With the educational material, based on the interviews from the oral history collections, we offer young people the opportunity to develop their own image of freedom and the conditions for freedom following such visits. This includes not only individual freedoms and the question of who they apply to, but also more collective freedoms and what it takes to protect them.
The material can be used by teachers and youth workers.

(The program was originally developed for the Maatschappelijke Diensttijd-programma “School des Levens”).

Process facilitators/teachers

In preparation, the facilitator delves into a number of background articles on freedom to properly coach the youth’s thinking and doing process.

In preparation for the technical part, the facilitator becomes proficient in the use of the various apps used in the program. Below are links to the manuals of the apps that can be used.

Photo editing

Snapseed

HOE-WERKT-SNAPSEED

_{©  Xammes.nl}

Animation

Stop-motion studio

Handleiding-Stop-Motion-Studio.pdf

_{© AHbeeld.be (Academie Haspengouw)}

uitleg_stopmotion_studio.pdf

_{© Eyefilm.nl (Eye Filmmuseum)}

Canva

canva-functies

_{© canva.com}

Handleiding-Canva.pdf

_{© fmdo.be}

Video

For video editing, it is easier not to work on your mobile, but on a computer. You can use open-source video editing software.

Open Shot Video Editor 

Open shot handleiding

_{© openshot.org}

OpenShot_Video_Editor

_{© wikiwijs.nl}

iMovie

iMovie handleiding

_{© apple.com}

Here you will find the working methods developed for The World of East and the film East. The tools are aimed at classroom discussion and research from a multi-perspective approach. They can be used in subjects such as history, CKV, (mbo) citizenship or project education and higher education.

The film De Oost is available on request for screening in schools and higher education via Movies that Matter. You can request the film here. For workshop requests and other questions, please send an e-mail to info@dewereldvandeoost.nl.

The working methods are in line with THE STORIES on The World of the East. They give context to the events from De Oost from five different perspectives and cover a wider period than the film. In the Q&A you can read more about the film, the periodization and perspectives.

For some forms of work it is necessary to watch De Oost first, this is indicated for each form. The age limit for De Oost is 16+, DE VERHALEN can be used from the 3rd grade. You can also use DE VERHALEN to find suitable source material for your lesson. Do you want to search quickly for specific subjects? Then use the work form Glossary.

With Oral History, we record personal memories of eyewitnesses through interviews. These personal stories give colour to the past. Something I sometimes struggle to do with our objective sources at the depot. The stories tell the human side of history and touch us. In this Oral History project, the students of Lingecollege get to know the history of the Moluccan community in Tiel.

The project starts with an interview lesson at school by writer Ronald Giphart and an introduction to Moluccan history by Benji Sariwating of Buah Hati. Then the pupils go to the Regionaal Archief Rivierenland for a guided tour through the depot with various archive documents about the history of the Moluccans in Tiel. After the tour they interview in groups a Moluccan elder about his or her life. In the last step, the pupils choose between a writing workshop by Giphart or a workshop by Ninja Heevel, a professional teacher from Zinder, and make an article or illustration for a joint newspaper.

As part of the exhibition ‘The Red Beret’, about 25 years of the Airborne Brigade, the Veterans Institute and the Airborne Museum work together to link the past with the present.

In addition to the educational programmes ‘Suitcases full of stories’ and ‘Armband of Friendship’, schools can hear an Airborne Brigade veteran talk about his or her experiences during various missions in the museum. What do Dutch soldiers actually do and what do they experience?

For who?
VMBO, HAVO AND VWO

Work format
Veteran in the classroom. Can only be booked in combination with one of the educational programmes.

Duration
60 minutes