© dpa
In hologram videos, presenter Klaas Heufer-Umlauf talks to Holocaust survivor Ruth Winkelmann.
© dpa
Kai Wegner is also involved in the project.
© dpa
For many years, Ruth Winkelmann has been appearing before school classes as a contemporary witness.
In a dark hall at a school in Berlin, Holocaust survivor Ruth Winkelmann and presenter Klaas Heufer-Umlauf engage in conversation.
You could almost get the feeling that they are actually sitting in the room. But the two are projected as holograms onto two large video cubes standing in the middle of the room. The conversation is about the experiences of the 97-year-old as a survivor of the Holocaust.
This week, five schools in Berlin are participating in a pilot project focused on promoting democracy and civil courage. It was initiated by Berlin entrepreneur Nicolai Schwarzer and his association "Nie wieder ist jetzt e.V." (Never Again is Now). Around 400 pupils in grades 8 to 10 are using hologram technology, among other things, to address issues such as anti-Semitism, racism and discrimination.
In addition to Winkelmann and Heufer-Umlauf, other celebrities such as Federal Minister of Labour Bärbel Bas (SPD), Governing Mayor of Berlin Kai Wegner (CDU), actor Kida Khodr Ramadan and rapper Eko Fresh will also be participating in the discussions via hologram. Ruth Winkelmann has been appearing as a contemporary witness in front of school classes and at readings for many years. The book "Plötzlich hieß ich Sara" (Suddenly My Name Was Sara) is about her life during the Nazi era. She grew up in Berlin and survived persecution by hiding in a garden shed.
How well will the culture of remembrance function when there are no longer any eyewitnesses left? The 97-year-old says she cannot say. But she does not seem to be thinking of stopping. "As long as I live, I will continue to give lots of talks in schools and also privately," she says. She finds working with young people very interesting. The school project was launched after a demonstration in December 2023 organised by the association "Nie wieder ist jetzt!" (Never again is now!) at the Brandenburg Gate following the Hamas attack in Israel. Initiator Nicolai Schwarzer noticed that very few young people were present.
Schwarzer says he then asked his son who exactly he would listen to at school. "Dad, if you replaced the teacher and Ronaldo or Messi were standing there in class, then I would listen very carefully and work hard," he replied, according to Schwarzer. The entrepreneur, himself a descendant of Holocaust survivors, then began to consider how celebrities could be brought into schools. That's how he came up with hologram technology.
The pupils are prepared in a number of lessons. They then view the holograms and can explore topics in more detail in an interactive section afterwards – for example, the question of what life was like for Winkelmann as a Jewish child. The concept, which deals with the challenges of democracy, was developed by a group of Berlin educators led by Carolin Kleinfeld, middle school coordinator at the Evangelische Schule Frohnau, and teacher Sebastian Telschow.