About the Field School:
By analyzing what Andreas Huyssen has termed “present pasts”, course participants explore how the past is negotiated in the present and, specifically, how issues such as racism, antisemitism, and homophobia are addressed in the present European Union. This field school explores and analyzes the ways in which the Holocaust is memorialized in Central Europe and builds an understanding of how the lessons of the Holocaust are relevant in today’s world. The course promotes intercultural learning through a variety of activities including joint workshops with European students and visits to memorial sites, museums, and monuments of the Holocaust. Upon return to Canada, participants share their experiences through formal presentations and discussions on campus, in high schools, and with the local community.
The program ran from May 8 – June 9, 2024, with the first week of classes taking place at the University of Victoria, followed by three weeks in Central Europe. Participants travelled to Berlin, Germany; Krakow, Poland; and Vienna, Austria.
During the 2024 Field School, students were assigned a site we were visiting in Europe to research and reflect upon. Students were instructed to create a reflection pre-visit and post-visit to the sites. The Pre-site visit posts discussed the history behind the creation of the memorial/museum as well as a description of what events/victims the site was memorializing. Post-site visits reflected on the experience of seeing these sites in person and students’ opinions on how well the site memorialized the events. Questions about behaviours at memorials, intended audience and accurate representations of victim groups were discussed.
Please go to the Memorial Site Reflections page at the top right corner to see a selection of students’ work.
