Another group of Chernivtsi high school students has participated in a practical seminar on totalitarian states and their discriminatory practices
As part of the “House of Memory” project, the second workshop was successfully held at the Museum of the History and Culture of Bukovinian Jews. The event aimed to make students familiar with the features and principles of totalitarian states and their discriminatory practices. Sixteen students from the following educational institutions in the city participated in the workshop: Lyceum No. 1, Lyceum No. 2, Lyceum No. 7, and Secondary School No. 1.
As Anna Yamchuk, the lecturer and coordinator of educational projects at the museum, states that there were no air raid sirens and no power cuts, and hence it was possible to go through the material in its entirety. “We were lucky,” says the speaker. “This time, we were ready for a power cut, we had a generator, but luckily we didn't have to use it. In addition, school students finally managed to visit the Chernivtsi Regional Museum of Local Lore. However, there was no electricity, so a tour was conducted with flashlights”.
As in the previous seminar, in the first part of the event, the participants became acquainted with historical examples of totalitarian regimes, considered the main features of totalitarian states and their dangers, and discussed and compared the situation Jews faced and the problems of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany and the USSR.
In the second part of the seminar, the participants worked even more. During the museum tour, they discussed the peculiarities of the political system in Romania in the 1920s and 1930s and its influence on multinational Bukovinian society. Students also worked on the topic of anti-Semitism in Bukovina. In particular, they became familiar with copies of documents and materials from newspapers of the time and played a role-playing game reenacting the trial of Nicolae Totu, a Romanian student from Iași, who fatally wounded David Falik, a Jewish schoolboy, in Chernivtsi in 1926. One group analyzed and voiced the arguments of Totu’s defenders, while the other group searched for and presented the arguments of the prosecution. “The children were as creative as they could be”, says the lecturer. “They were interested in working together. The story of a student of their age affected them. After the event, students approached me and asked why there was nothing on the internet about the case of David Falik. I told them that this topic is little-known in Ukraine. We intentionally chose something interesting that high school students hadn’t heard about before”.
At the end of the seminar, the topic of the Holocaust in Bukovina was raised. How it all started, and where it led. The students concluded that in today’s world, there are authoritarian states that tend to totalitarianism and thereby threaten not only their citizens but also neighboring countries. “We, Ukrainians, like no one else, are observing what it is turning into and feel the consequences of the unlearned lessons of the past. Therefore, we want to arm our children with historical knowledge and the ability to recognize the dangers that come or may come from authoritarian regimes so that they never become victims of the latter”.
As last time, the seminar ended with the presentation of certificates for the participants and the exchange of positive feedback.
Additional information: in total, six more similar seminars are to be organized within the “House of Memory” project, including several on-site ones. We plan to organize two workshops together with Romanian colleagues in educational institutions in the southern part of Bukovyna.
