Group A
educators: Sandra Franz, Intaek Hong, Rebekka Schubert, Ki-Jun Kwon, Paula Oppermann
Educational goal
The educational goal of the workshop was to introduce the students of Kyongmoon High school to the history of forced labour in Germany during WWII and to find connections and parallels between the Korean history during that period in order to approach the topic as a transnational phenomenon.
Target group
The workshop took place in a private all boys school in Seoul. It was conducted in two blocks of two hours on two separate days.
The programme was implemented within a class which was part of the after-school activities. These classes can be chosen freely by the students. The entire class focusses on the phenomenon of “Comfort women”, Korean women who were forced to work as sexual slaves for the imperial Japanese army during WWII. The conducting teacher, Beom Chul Park, was a participant of the first half of the workshop “Forced Labor during World War II as a Transnational Phenomenon” in Berlin in August 2016.
The eight 11th grade students who participated in our workshop were between sixteen and seventeen years old. Their English skills were very good and sufficient to follow the workshop in English.
Program of the workshop and methods
The workshop consisted of several parts which were designed to activate the students, interact with them and engage them in the topic.
The first day started with a very brief self-introduction of the participants, followed by an exercise. The students were given the choice of several historic photographs. Half of them depicted forced labourers in Germany, half of them in Japan and Korea. The displayed situations ranked from working areas and conditions to living conditions and stigmatisation through labelling as “Ost”. The students paired up in teams of two or three. Each team chose a photo from the German side and one photo from the Asian side. Their task was to analyse the photos and report the rest of the group what they can tell from these historical sources. They also tried to draw comparisons between the two photos.
The first session ended with an historical overview about the history of forced labour during WWII in Germany, filling in the gaps and answering questions the students had about their photos while also confirming some of their interpretations. Afterwards the students had a chance to ask questions. From their previous presentations as well as from the historical overview the group was able to name three important topics (working/living conditions; women and children; racism and labelling). The group paired of in three teams – each team picking a topic for the next session.
The second half of the workshop started with the previously assigned teams doing research on their topic (in this case only on the German history). The students were given texts containing information about their topic. Each team designed a poster out of the photo material they had at their disposal as well as the information they had gathered from the texts. Each group decided on three to four bullet points containing the most important aspects of their topic. Afterwards they presented their poster to the rest of the group.
The workshop ended with a discussion round in which the students had a chance to ask questions and comment on the material we had worked with.
Evaluation
The workshop was a success. Without the tutors pointing it out the students approached the topic of forced labour as a transnational phenomenon. The fact that they came to this conclusion on their own is a success in itself. The student’s feedback on the methods were mainly positive. They stated that they were not used to working with historical such as photos. The students amicably confirmed that they thoroughly enjoyed working with primary sources. The level of historical knowledge they gained from the workshop seemed very high which was gratifying. The only issue turned out to be the language barrier as some of the texts were too elaborate for the students to understand easily. Thankfully the Korean tutors were able to translate which helped in surpassing this barrier.
Group B
educators: Hee Yun Cheong, Anja Kruse, Verena Meier, Mareike Otters
Educational goal
The educational goal of the workshop was to introduce the students of Kyungmoon High school to the topic of forced labor as a transnational phenomenon focusing on its history in Germany and South Korea during WWII.
Target group/ Institutional context
The workshop took place in Kyungmoon High School, a private boy-school in Seoul. It was divided in two parts, that consisted of two hours each and took place on two days.
The workshop was part of the elective after school class, which focuses on the history of the Korean women and girls who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army during WW II. The teacher of the class, Beom Chul Park, had participated in the first part of the workshop “Forced Labor during World War II as a Transnational Phenomenon” in Berlin (14. – 21. August 2016).
The eight participants were 11th grade students in the age of 16 to 17 years. They had already been learning about the topic for almost a year and had done various related excursions and activities. They are familiar with the basics of the history of World War II in Asia, but not so much with the historical events in Europe. The students were fluent in English, which enabled a good communicative exchange.
Program of the workshop and methods
The program of the workshop was a mixture of interactive methods and input by the educators.
It started on the first day with a gallery walk as an ice-breaker. For the gallery walk 30 pictures related to the topic of forced labor in Asia and Europe were spread on tables. The students were asked to look at the pictures for about five minutes and to choose the picture they were especially interested in. Afterwards they presented their choice to their classmates.
The educators chose the gallery walk to activate the students, start a conversation and generate questions about the topic of forced labor from the very beginning of the workshop. The method also served as a way to get to know and to get comfortable with each other.
The gallery walk was followed by two 10-minute long lectures held by the educators to give an overview about the history of forced labor in Europe and Asia during World War II. Main question answered in the lectures were: What happened? Why did it happen? Who were the victims, who the perpetrators? How is forced labor commemorated? After the lectures the students got the chance to ask questions.
For a creative work session on the second day the educators had prepared folders, containing a mix of sources (pictures, documents and biographies) related to the topic of forced labor during World War II in Asia and Europe. The material covered following aspects of the history of forced labor: violence, discrimination/racism, work and living conditions (e.g.. housing/ hunger/ language) and memory. The students’ task was to create a memory collage by using a poster, scissors, glue and the sources they found in the folders and to present the finished product to their classmates.
The educators chose the creative method of a memory collage to make the students use historical sources to individually reflect on the history and memory of forced labor during World War II in Europe and Asia and to create their own interpretation and memory through making a piece of art.
Evaluation
In general, the workshop proved to be very successful. The main aim, namely to introduce the students to the topic of forced labor during World War II as a transnational phenomenon, could be achieved. The students‘ feedback on the applied methods was mainly very positive. They reported that it was the first time for them not only working with historical sources such as photographies but also working with the different methods that were applied (gallery walk, collages). In the end they came up with very creative and well thought-out collages, which presented their individual kind of reflection on the history and memory of forced labor during World War II as a transnational phenomenon.
Prior to the workshop we were not sure if the available time would be sufficient to teach the students the basic knowledge about this complex topic. An additional challenge proved to be the language, as neither the participants nor the educators were English native speakers. Although some very few contents and step of procedures had to be translated into Korean language, it turned out to be possible conducting the workshop in English.
Forced Labor during World War II as a Transnational Phenomenon 