Reason enough for us - five 7th semester students from the Department of Information Sciences Felicitas Bertel (Library Science programme), Anna Lektova (Information and Data Management programme), Leonie Peuker, Natalie Reum and Jannine Schramm (Archive programme) - to spend the period from April to November 2024 under the guidance of Prof. Dr Susanne Freund (Professor of Archive Studies) and Dr Petra Haustein (Research Associate at the Netzwerk Zeitgeschichte). Dr Susanne Freund (Professor of Archival Studies) and Dr Petra Haustein (Research Associate at the Contemporary History Network), we intensively explored the socio-political role and significance of memorial sites in a nationwide overview, as well as the challenges and limitations of their educational work. In view of the initial situation outlined above, we asked ourselves how a wider range of target groups could be reached by the memorial work.

To this end, we conducted discussions and interviews with experts, sent out questionnaires to memorial sites and organised on-site excursions. By sending out questionnaires, we were able to gain an insight into the reality of both East and West German memorials with their different histories in both German states up to 1989. During our excursion to the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum, we became aware of the responsibility of concentration camp memorials - also due to their partial multiple use as detention centres during the Nazi and Soviet occupation periods - as places where different interests and historical narratives of the various victim groups were played out.

In the interview with Dr Sylvia de Pasquale (Director of the Brandenburg an der Havel Memorials), her many years of experience gave us an understanding of the opportunities for taking into account and integrating people with learning difficulties in exhibition development and education. Memorials and other institutions of remembrance culture are also pioneers in the participation of very different population groups in the conception of teaching programmes for historical-political education. Dr Annette Leo (historian and publicist) underlined this with her statement that memorials should never be static, but should always be oriented towards current social developments and wishes. In the interview, Prof Dr Axel Drecoll (Director of the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum and Director of the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation) highlighted the discrepancy between political expectations and the actual effectiveness of historical and political education at memorial sites. Although they function as important places for social dialogue and a culture of pluralistic debate, they have too little influence on the everyday lives and biographies of visitors and therefore cannot replace the responsibility of society as a whole for the preservation of democratic values. It became particularly clear that support from the majority of society was already lacking at individual sites and that many memorials were concerned about the future and the preservation of the sites.

In particular, our expert discussion with Dr Sabine Moller (Director of the Centre for the History of Kiel in the 20th Century) provided us with valuable insights into the world of so-called citizen science, which we would like to suggest as a consequence of our extensive research as an impetus for memorial site work. Dr Moller explained to us the advantages of involving schoolchildren and other interested laypeople in research workshops on urban research and in exhibition concepts, for example; a valuable approach that also seems fruitful to us, especially for the question of how more and more interested people could be won over for memorial site work.

Overall, we were able to gain a concrete picture of the personal commitment of the memorial centre staff, the challenges of their work and the new developments in memorial centre education. We gained a deeper understanding of the complexity of remembrance work and the social responsibility of everyone involved in its success and would like to thank all participating institutions and representatives of the remembrance landscape for these valuable insights. A comprehensive report of our work will be published in an appropriate place next year.

Felicitas Bertel (Library Science degree programme), Anna Lektova (Information and Data Management degree programme), Leonie Peuker, Natalie Reum and Jannine Schramm (Archive degree programme).