Unerhörte Geschichten

The topic of migration is often discussed in an ahistorical, impersonal and unappreciative manner. The reasons for migration, the associated realities and, above all, the voices of migrants are rarely discussed. To counteract this and present the individual stories in their historical and political context, the team of the transnational documentary film and education initiative with WINGS and ROOTS developed an interactive timeline. It makes it possible to explore key historical events that have shaped our notions of migration, social and political rights and belonging. The timeline covers the last 140 years.

Historical-political education about migration, collective violence and experiences of injustice

The interactive timeline presented selected historical events through short explanatory texts on the political and social context and audiovisual material (either interviews with second and third generation migrants/young people of color created by the initiative, archive material, images or sound recordings). In addition to important laws and political decisions in the context of migration and asylum, the selection of events was primarily based on the inclusion of collective experiences of injustice, which are often underrepresented in German historiography. These include the history of colonialism and the disenfranchisement of Black Germans during the National Socialist era, the history of Sint*izze and Rom*nja and their systematic persecution during the German Empire and the genocide during National Socialism, the experience of migrants in the GDR and of refugees due to war and expulsion, as well as forms of activism and resistance. Users can choose how they navigate through the timeline. By choosing a specific topic or geographical region, users can view only a specific section of the timeline, focusing on their current interests. At the same time, they can mark events that were relevant to them and add their own stories to the timeline.

When creating the timeline, we worked closely with volunteer supporters, academic advisors and civil society partners, so that different backgrounds of experience and knowledge were incorporated.

Development of materials for educational work

As part of the project on (un)heard stories, with WINGS and ROOTS and Cultures Interactive developed materials for school and extracurricular educational work that were intended to use the interactive timeline to convey collective violence and experiences of injustice in the context of a migration society. Both in the media and in schools, migration is often reduced to certain groups (such as people from Turkey), forms (labor migration), perspectives (West Germany) and time periods (after the Second World War) or selectively focused on internal German flight processes. The totality and normality of migration across national borders is rarely addressed and aspects of systematic oppression and violent conflicts in the country of origin and continued oppression in the destination country are often ignored. At the same time, the various acts of resistance against such human rights violations are not made visible. The project therefore focused on highlighting the links and continuities between different historical events, such as the connections between colonialism and National Socialism, on the one hand, and on the other hand, by juxtaposing different stories and experiences, on giving people the opportunity to enter into a dialog and exchange views on shared, unifying and divisive moments.

Project goals

• Stimulating a dialog between diverse target groups with and without experience of migration and racism on the issue of communicating aspects of German migration history related to violence and injustice
• Developing innovative and practicable educational modules for schools and extracurricular activities that can convey experiences of and deal with collective violence and systematic injustice in the context of migration using multimedia and without (re)producing exclusions
• Imparting historical knowledge about the occurrence, causes and consequences of systematic oppression and violence
• Sensitizing educators and young people to the heterogeneity of perspectives and ways of remembering historical experiences of violence in a migration society based on experience
• Enabling the transfer of historical knowledge about violence-related migration events and their consequences to the present in order to understand and reflect on current conflicts