Destructions on Texel after combats between georgian and german troops. Damaged lighthouse of De Cocksdorp (Texel)
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.
Starting the conversation about the past can sometimes be quite difficult. Everyone has a different experience, a different story. These films, produced especially for college students, show them how to listen to and record another person’s story. To do so, they use the oral history interview method. The films can be viewed from today on the YouTube channel of Erfgoed Gelderland..
These five short films explain what an oral history interview is, how to prepare and conduct it yourself, and what you can do with it. In each film, interviewer Shaima takes you through her own oral history research. She has found a mysterious object in the attic and wants to know more about it. Shaima ends up with Joop, who can tell her more about the object because he experienced the Battle of Arnhem as a child. Shaima does an oral history interview with Joop and shows how she does it.
MBO teachers can use the films in class to introduce students to the oral history interview technique. The material will help students later do their own oral history interviews on the topic of freedom. In preparation, there are several teaching modules around the theme of freedom and unfreedom. More information about the modules and the curriculum can be found on the website of the Arnhem and Nijmegen University of Applied Sciences. Would you like to start your own project with oral history? Then contact Erfgoed Gelderland.
The films are part of the Gelderland in Freedom program, made possible by the province of Gelderland. The videos were made by Erfgoed Gelderland and filmmakers Niek&Nena in cooperation with Airborne Museum ‘Hartenstein’ and other partners of the project Citizenship and Freedom: Remembrance Center Apeldoornsche Bosch, the Freedom Museum, National Shelter Museum, HAN University of Applied Sciences, ROC Nijmegen, Rijn IJssel, Graafschap College and Aventus.
ORAL HISTORY | Episode 1 What is oral history?
ORAL HISTORY | Episode 2 Preparing for the interview
ORAL HISTORY | Episode 3 Recording the interview
ORAL HISTORY | Episode 4 Interview technique
ORAL HISTORY | Episode 5 Processing and archiving the interview
Freedom is a theme that sometimes sinks a bit in our society. It is so taken for granted. The coronavirus measures and the war in Ukraine have recently revived the discussion of freedom.
In oral history interviews, freedom comes up regularly. Especially in stories of people who have experienced situations of war and oppression themselves.
Based on the experience with the project My freedom-your freedom?, in which quotes from oral history interviews played a role, we have created an educational program. This program is intended to challenge young people in a fun way to work with the concept of freedom. The program can be used by youth workers (for example in Social Time of Service (MDT) projects and by teachers of MBO and secondary education. A more extensive introduction on the theme of freedom and the pogrammes to be used can be found at the bottom of this page.
Below you will find it worked out in four rounds.
The manual (in Dutch) can be downloaden here
What will the young people do?
How will they do it?
In this round, you will discuss the theme of freedom with a group of young people.
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.
Listen to at least 4 sound clips (via our website) or read the excerpt texts.
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
Three ways to imagine freedom.
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.
Use your cell phone to take a picture that expresses what freedom means to you.
Edit your photo with a free photo editing app to make it more expressive.
Snapseed
[The group facilitator/teacher explains the basics]
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.
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.
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]
Presenting
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.
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”).
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.
Snapseed
© Xammes.nl
Stop-motion studio
Handleiding-Stop-Motion-Studio.pdf
© AHbeeld.be (Academie Haspengouw)
© Eyefilm.nl (Eye Filmmuseum)
Canva
© canva.com
© fmdo.be
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
© openshot.org
© wikiwijs.nl
iMovie
© apple.com
The archive of Sound & Vision is invaluable for creative media makers. Archived television broadcasts, documentaries, radio broadcasts, sound recordings, photographs and amateur films: all potential content for the story you want to tell. And an excellent source for research and investigation. But how do you get hold of that material? Whose material is it? What can you use?
Archive colleges are courses and master classes that are given as part of the study programmes or are part of specific pathways. Practical and inspiring, in modules or tailor-made.
FOR WHOM?
We focus on:
Fill in the form if you want to contact us about the Archive colleges. As a student, you can also register yourself. Or mail Kristina Petrasova directly.
Foto: School voor Vrouwenarbeid – Museum Rotterdam – CC BY
We discuss the collection of Sound & Vision and show previous projects and collaborations for inspiration. Image researchers and/or curators of Sound and Vision talk about searching the collection catalog and how the collection is built up. How is it determined what is and is not to be archived?
And in practical terms: where do you start your research, how do you manage your results and how do you take into account the context of the material? Naturally, we show many examples of available content.
For first year students this module is mainly an introduction to archiving. With more experienced creators we go deeper into building the research.
Foto: Rijksmuseum – Public Domain
This module is a low-threshold introduction to copyright. For creative reuse, for example, public domain, citation law and portrait law are relevant. Afterwards clearing can cause problems for the story you want to tell. How can you estimate during the search whether you can obtain a license for the material? And what will that cost? Sometimes you can use material for free, what are the conditions?
We also discuss ethics. How do you deal with sensitive historical footage in a contemporary production? How do you deal with privacy and context?
We will give appealing examples and invite participants to come up with specific questions.
Foto: Denken en Dromen – Museon – CC BY
A module about the love for the archive. Renowned creators from different disciplines tell how archival material can enrich your work and show examples of appealing and special film and/or art projects.
Content from the archive expands the possibilities of the creative process, gives depth to the subjects and offers great possibilities in both linear and non-linear narratives. Archival material can contribute to the formation of one’s own language and working practice.
Foto: Wellcome Collection, United Kingdom – CC BY
In addition to the basic modules, there is a lot more knowledge at Sound & Vision that could be relevant to students and professionals in the creative industry. Additional modules can be arranged depending on your needs and educational institution, such as archiving for makers and using data in your research.
Pupils who are on the edge of their seats. Who realise that not everything is what it seems. And who understand that refugees often have to make very difficult choices.
This is what Verhaal van mijn vlucht offers.
In the video series Young at War, eyewitnesses talk about their childhood in the Second World War. The videos are arranged by theme and last about 10 minutes. In cooperation with Schooltv, they have been specially developed for use in the classroom. There are now 24 videos on various subjects.
Educative guide compiled by: Jan Durk Tuinier, Peace Education Foundation
Teaching material for group 7 and 8 of primary school, secondary schools and MBO’s
The teacher’s guide can be downloaded as pdf here
With the educational programme ‘Blik op Vrijheid’, pupils empathise with the stories of the main characters. How does it feel as a little boy to find your city destroyed and have to go into hiding in another city? And how does it affect you when you have to report to the police in a new country as a refugee? What actually happened in Hungary in 1956, and were exiles from Chile in the 1970s? These and many other questions pupils get to work with after seeing the six film portraits of Teun Jordaan (1940), Otto Szauer (1956), Benito Sanchez and Coty Salazar (1976), Ziba Nilian (1994), Abdel Tarakji (2012) and Sham Hassan (2016). The viewing guide, accompanying questions and other creative work formats are described in the first part of the educational manual
Unique oral history teaching materials in development
Films teach MBO students how to interview about the theme of ‘freedom’
Erfgoed Gelderland is developing unique oral history teaching materials in collaboration with the Gelderland War Museums, the University of Applied Sciences Arnhem Nijmegen and various vocational schools in Gelderland. The teaching materials are part of the ‘Freedom and Citizenship’ project and consist of five short films intended for secondary vocational education. In the films, the basic principles of the oral history interview technique are explained in a narrative manner, so that students can then conduct their own interviews on the subject of freedom. The project is made possible by the Province of Gelderland.
