Working Group 1

Narrative, Interactive Sequences, Materials

Working Group 2

Support

   
Angela Tiefenthaler Axel Schacht
Daniel Tscholl Brigitte Kiesenhofer
Heidrun Schulze-Oben Gerhard Riegler
Ines Brachmann Heidrun Schulze-Oben
Karin Gschwandtner Ines Brachmann
Lisa Neuhuber  
Lukas Strasser  
Magdalena Fröhlich  
Oksana Dmytruk Kolarik  
Paul Schwediauer  
Stefanie Maier  
Ünal Cetinkaya

Angela Tiefenthaler

Angela Tiefenthaler has studied art history in Vienna and Berlin, and is pursuing teacher training in art education and history. She is involved in a variety of youth education projects dealing with issues that touch on feminism, democracy, and contemporary history. She has been working as a guide at the Mauthausen Memorial since 2011.

In her work at the memorial site she strives to develop ways of communicating that create an environment conducive to the discussion of those difficult topics that this place and its history bring up. She is interested in exploring narrative structures, explanatory traditions, and taboos surrounding conversations about the Holocaust and National Socialism.

Daniel Tscholl

Daniel Tscholl has been involved in the work at the memorial for almost a decade, starting with his community service in 2004.
He has been mainly working as a guide, but also briefly as a support for the educational team, contributing among other things to the development of new formats for guided tours.

Heidrun Schulze-Oben

Heidrun

Heidrun Schulze-Oben was born in Unna, Germany, in 1957. She studied History, English and pedagogics (teacher training) and did her PhD in Ancient History, History and Anglistics at the University of Münster. After her assignments as a research and lecture professional at the Universities of Münster and Heidelberg she worked in several professional and executive positions in Corporate Communications. She has an education in Systemic Organisational Development and worked as a consultant for Corporate Communications and Change Management before she moved to Austria. Heidrun received the third guide development program at the memorial site of Mauthausen and is a member of the guide pool since spring 2013. 

Ines Brachmann 

ines brachmannInes Brachmann received the second guide development program at the memorial site of Mauthausen in 2010/2011 and works as a guide since spring 2011. She absolved the course of studies Pädagogik an Gedächtnisorten/ Pedagogics at Places of Remembrance at the University of Education in Linz from March 2012 to February 2013. Ines holds a degree (Diplom) in International Cultural and Business Studies of the University of Passau and currently works as an editor in a publishing house. She is a guide-in-training at Hartheim Castle – Place of learning and remembrance.

In the working group 1 of the EU project her focus lies on perpetratorship in a wider sense, including the bystanders: How can we include this complicated topic in guided tours at memorial sites? What can be learned from this topic regarding today’s society? Is it appropriate to actively link the past to the present?
Another emphasis is the intent to handle the contradiction of necessary simplification for the educational work versus the complexity of the subject and to carefully deal with the language: How can we speak about this place and what happened here without using the language of the perpetrators and/or simplifying too much?

Having been involved many years in sociocultural and political initiatives, Ines' main focus in the working group 2 are self-organization and self-empowerment. Given that the work at a memorial site can be very straining, it is her strong belief that there needs to be an institutional and organizational scope for self-organization and a system of support mechanisms which cannot be provided by the guides themselves in order to ensure the psychological and emotional well-being of the guides. Finding out which support tools are most needed by involving the guides of the Mauthausen memorial site is her aim in the EU project.

Karin Gschwandtner

KarinKarin Gschwandtner has been working as a guide at the Mauthausen Memorial since 2011. From 2011 to 2013 she was part of the team that organized two new permanent exhibitions at the Mauthausen Memorial. Her responsibility was the organization of all original objects that are being presented in the exhibitions at the Memorial. Now Karin is a member of the educational team at the Mauthausen Memorial.

She started her professional career as project manager of various cultural projects in Austria, for example Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture.

Her special interest in the EU project „Developing Education at Memorial Sites“ is gathering knowledge about the history of concentration camps with a particular focus on perpetration and all its impacts on the society nowadays. Another important issue is how it is possible to link the history of the concentration camp and the National Socialism to the life of the students/visitors and if this is one goal of the pedagogical work at the Mauthausen Memorial.
One focus is also to find models and pedagogical methods to guide visitor groups constantly according to their demands and needs on a very high level of interaction and hospitality.

Karin studies Social Work at the University of Applied Sciences in Linz.

Lukas Strasser

2009 - 2010 Alternative Service at Ghetto Fighers' Museum in Israel
2010 - current Student of Linguistics and Sociology at the University of Vienna
2012 Training as a Guide at Mauthausen Memorial

During training I took a particular interest in the representation of the Guard Troops in a guided tour to the memorial. The structure of the training allowed for the trainees to experiment with their own station sequences. Particularly the memorial park, were the guard troops' buildings were located, left space to introduce new ideas. In my work for the Think Tank I aim to contribute to the development of concepts for station sequences in this area of the memorial and the lifes and actions of Guard Troops at Mauthausen.

Lisa Neuhuber

Lisa2010/11 volunteer service at the Anne Frank House Amsterdam
since 2011 studying Social- & Cultural Anthropology and History at the University of Vienna
since February 2013 Guide at the Mauthausen Memorial

In addition to providing historical expertise, as a guide I try to put an emphasis on the different ways of getting involved with my groups. How to create an atmosphere where dialogue and exchange of ideas, thoughts and feelings are best possible for everyone? How to engage with groups, for instance by applying participatory methods? But also ‘appropriate’ use of language, places, and narratives are challenges I am reflecting on. Besides that, theories of remembrance cultures/collective memories and ways of representation constitute areas of interest - both in the context of my studies as well as a guide in Mauthausen.

 

Magdalena Fröhlich

Magdalena

For me personally, contributing to this project is very rewarding. On the one hand, because it gives me the opportunity to work with and learn from lots of extraordinary, intelligent, wonderful people; and on the other hand, because developing new material presents an enormous challenge to my creativity. I particularly like the practical work, planning, constructing and application of new ideas. Apart from this project, I have been acting as a guide at the Memorial Mauthausen since the third training cycle, and I am studying to be a teacher of history, science and political education as well as German at the University of Vienna.

 

Oksana Dmytruk Kolarik

OksanaI come from Galicia (Ukraine), near Lviv/Lemberg, and have successfully completed a degree in History at the national “Ostrog Academy” (dissertation title: “Foreign Help for the Contributors to Ukrainian Resistance in the second half of the 60s and 70s of the 20th century”). Following that, I passed further exams of the Ukrainian Candidate of Sciences. I now live in Kronstorf/Upper Austria. As I have done some research work in Ukraine since my graduation, I am always interested finding ways to adequately apply my knowledge and skills. My interest and motivation for this area is best expressed by the inscription of the Greek memorial in the Memorial Mauthausen: “Do not forget us, who died here, for forgetting evil allows it to be repeated.” 

I come from a country where groups of people have also been persecuted by others. It shocks me again and again how, in these dark times in history, human beings could act in this way and yet be “normal, regular” people. If we become aware that people like “you” and “me” can lose all humanity, it enables our generation to learn important things. Since I act as a guide at the Memorial Mauthausen, developing new material is relevant to me. My particular interests in the research project are the scope of action of the perpetrators, particularly the doctors, the medical aide personnel (often recruited from among the inmates) and the women among the guard troops.

Paul Schwediauer

Paul

August 2009 – April 2010 Alternative Civilian Service (Zivildienst), Memorial Mauthausen

since April 2010 employed part-time as guide at the Memorial Mauthausen

July 2012 - March 2013 training to be a guide at the Memorial Mauthausen

since autumn 2010 studying agricultural science at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna

 

 

Stefanie Maier

Stefanie Maier took part in the guide training in 2012 and has been working as a guide at the Mauthausen Memorial since January 2013. She has studied German and Slavonic Philology and teaches German as a foreign language in Vienna.

During training and from practical experience with visitors at the Mauthausen Memorial, she learned that the representation of prisoners during the tours is often questionable. Her interest in the project is to find ways to speak about prisoners in a way that allows empathy and some insight to their perspective without exposing them or even reproducing a dehumanizing perspective on them. The working group focuses on potentials and risks of testimonies portraying specific situations that took place in the concentration camp. The aim is to design interactive sequences based on personal testimonies of victims.

Ünal Cetinkaya

UenalAugust 2010 – April 2011 Alternative Civilian Service at Mauthausen Memorial

Since April 2011 employed guide at Mauthausen Memorial

October 2011 – July 2012 studying Business, Economics, and Social Sciences at the Vienna University of Economics and Business

July 2012 – March 2013 guide development program

Since October 2012 studying Business Law at the Vienna University of Economics and Business

Since March 2013 member of the guide pool at Mauthausen Memorial

When I was asked to take part in this project, I was very happy to get the opportunity to make a contribution to such a meaningful place as the former concentration camp of Mauthausen.

In the first place I focussed on developing new perspectives for the narratives for a guided tour as a whole. This lead me to the question what would change in the narrative of a guided tour, if there is a variation in the order of different stations of such a tour. So I worked on alternative ways to structure a guided tour. 

Axel Schacht

Axel

Axel Schacht studied Social sciences in Linz, but has worked in the areas of social work and social education for the last 15 years, most recently working with homeless people. He also independently works in political education and adult education. Since the beginning of 2011, he is employed in the capacity of an educator at the Memorial Mauthausen. Further interests in historical/political education include historical hiking in the country as well as in cities, and accompanying excursions and educational journeys in Austria and Israel.

His professional experience in social work has helped him realize how important it is, when interacting socially, to continually critically reflect on one's own actions. This is particularly necessary in difficult situations, which also occur in the work at the memorial. In this context, it is necessary, on the one hand, to collectively clarify our own place in the organisational structure of the Memorial, and to represent your own interests while simultaneously making space for a network of learning, communication and action. It is important to provide working conditions that include respectful interaction, transparent structure, opportunities to contribute and financial security, and thereby to enable necessary goals such as self-reflection, personal development and professionalization.

Brigitte Kiesenhofer

Brigitte

Since Brigitte Kiesenhofer began engaging in social work almost 20 years ago, she has been confronted with social exclusion and discrimination of people who have been ostracised by parts of society because they do not conform to the pervasive norms of consumption and success. In her concrete work, she experiences how fearful, irrational projections tend to particularly target those who do not have a lobby or anyone to represent their interests. In this context, she is confronted again and again with the process known as “scapegoating”. She is concerned by political developments which make use of or encourage this process. In her work as a guide, which she has been doing since March 2012, she tries to encourage critically questioning ways of thought and behaviour that disregard human dignity, and to connect the past with these tendencies in the present.

Both as a guide in the memorial and with her work in a counselling centre, where working with others and, therefore, psychological processes are prioritised, she considers herself her immediate “tool” which she has to take good care of. In order to do this, suitable structures are necessary which provide time and space for reflecting and exchange. She is contributing to the working group 2 in the context of the EU project in order to create ideas and opportunities to make this possible.

Gerhard Riegler 

Gerhard

Gerhard Riegler has been in social work for almost 30 years and nevertheless (or maybe because of that) still wants to engage in social-political work.

He is a trained educator for people with disabilities and also has completed training as a mediator, moderator in sexual therapy and outdoor education teacher. Since 2011, he has been working with groups as a guide at the Memorial Mauthausen and is a member of a number of groups that work on the educational concepts and, in particular, the situation of the employees at the Memorial. Gerhard Riegler intends to fight the financial shortages that social institutions face, the scandalous, because sometimes precarious income situations which haunt employees in this field, as well as the political pronouncements of Austrian political parties concerning issues such as racism, refugees, success mentality and so on, which in turn enable simplistic, discriminating problem-solving strategies in politics. As a guide at the Memorial, he wants to contribute to this goal. The working group 2 gives him a dynamic space to help develop his ideas and recommendations particularly regarding the support of the guides.

 

 

 

 

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