Centropa Summer Academy 2018

The participants had the opportunity to visit the Scheunenviertel, Berlin's historical Jewish quarter, plus several museums and memorial sites dedicated to the history of Jewish people and Berlin history during the Cold War. One afternoon's program centered on Sephardic life in Greece, the Western Balkans and especially former Yugoslavia. Concluding the 12th Summer Academy and its seven days long sequence of excursions, visits, lectures, films, and group work, a presentation of the group results and videos, took place in the headquarter of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, before staff, teachers, and this year's participants said good-bye to each other on July 12.

 The Centropa Summer Academy (CSA) is an annual event, hosting international groups of up to 85 teachers and educational multipliers. This year's participants had the unique opportunity to spend seven intensive days in the heart of Berlin, where they added to their knowledge base on 20th century history, Holocaust and civil society, developed and sharpened their tech skills, and formed international partnerships with 85 other teachers from 19 countries.

Centropa is a Jewish historical institute dedicated to preserving 20th century Jewish family stories from Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and working with teachers to use those stories to engage their students in conversations about history, civics, and ethics.

Since 2000, Centropa has interviewed 1,200 elderly Jews in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as digitalized more than 22,000 of their family photographs. These materials are today available and searchable on the Centropa website. Based on the collected stories, Centropa creates short multimedia films and exhibitions perfect for classroom use, and work with educators in over 500 schools in 18 countries.