Beit Projet – projet européen 2022-23 « The Nomadic school of European Remembrance »

The Nomadic school of European Remembrance responds to the need to create a dialogue between young European people from different social cultural backgrounds and functional diversity through the study and interpretation of their urban environment and its history. For several days in each session, youth from two different educational institutions get to know each other and work together around an ephemeral and nomadic school installed in a place of heritage. They take ownership of this historical place by working on traces of the past, social issues and video production. The idea of the project is to transform the perception of diversity into a richness and to build a common dialogue, but also to develop an analysis of the city through the interpretation of the traces of the past.
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Since April 2022, the Nomadic school of European Remembrance has been in Marseille, Brussels, Barcelona, Sofia, Athens and Timișoara. and took place in very significant locations :
. Le Panier in Marseille : a district greatly destroyed during the Second World War by Nazi forces and the Vichy French Government to “erase” the local Resistance. A small Memorial of Deportation Camps is located in the very same area, in an old Bunker.
. Les Halles Saint-Géry in Brussels located in the city center, where can be found many traces of the Nazi occupation, and the deportation of many of the local its Jewish population but also traces about the Congo’s colonization history.
. The Estació de França in Barcelona : the historical Barcelona train station which was an unique opportunity for youth to discover all the traces linked to WWII, Francoism and symbols of exile during dictatorship.
. Serdika Center in Sofia where the synagogue commemorates the rescue of the Jewish community and the local resistance to Nazis. The Banya Bachi Mosque and other main catholic edifices are located in this place, as well as a architectural ensemble of three socialist classicism edifices where the former Bulgarian Communist Party had its headquarter
. Thiseío district in Athens, in front of the Holocaust Memorial. The site is close to the synagogue in Melidoni street where Jews of Athens were trapped and captured by the Germans. Nearly 90 percent of Greek Jews were sent to concentration camps and exterminated
. Victory square in Timisoara, where the city was proclaimed in 1989 the first city free of communism in Romania, the starting point of a revolution which liberated the country from the dictatorship of Nicolae CeauSescu.

The project’s main objectives are:
To reveal the memory of places and develop a common reflection between very different groups around the current realities related to it: raise awareness of discrimination of all types established in the past in Europe; allow an open dialogue between very different parts of local society on the memory of the city and the current perception of the other; raise awareness of the importance of European remembrance work for the preservation and deepening of democracy; be aware of the past to enhance the value of the EU.
To connect historical realities - local and global in Europe - creating a reflection on the current situation of discrimination still present in Europe. Conceived as a European Journey, each participating group will send to the next city the most relevant and profound questions that, following their interpretation, the remembrance site raises. This "Relay-journey" generates common interpretations of history, precisely thanks to the diverse perspectives on the same theme.

875 youth and 1600 adults have participated directly through on-site workshops managed by a consortium of 7 experienced partners, ending in Timisoara ECoC 2023 with the photos exhibition in the urban space (Botanical garden fences) viewed by hundreds of people during one month.