Old Fordon- One city, three cultures....

In search of traces of former neighbours - Old Fordon

TOLI Minigrant

The Young people from our school, for the sixth time, took part in an international programme of the TOLI Foundation, which is dedicated to teaching about the Holocaust and human rights.

Pupils from classes 2b and 2h carried out an educational project (Old Fordon - One city, three cultures...), the aim of which was to learn about the material and cultural heritage in old Fordon, where representatives of three communities lived side by side: Polish, Jewish and German.

The guide to the traces of their material heritage was an educator, Leader of the Polish-Jewish Dialogue, associated with the Association of Old Fordon Lovers, Damian Amon Rączka.

During the project, the young people prepared activities for their peers on human rights, examples of how they have been violated and respected, past and present.

The young people walked the streets of Old Fordon, discovering traces of the presence of the Jewish and German communities there.

The results of the project are ‘Windows of Remembrance’- as a symbol of the commemoration of these communities; a city game, translated into Spanish, by young people from class 2h; the film „Fordon- one city, three cultures.”

The conclusion of the grant, was a trip to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, the Former German Concentration and Extermination Camp.

For the young people, the project became an opportunity to reflect on a certain moral imperative that commands us to be constantly concerned with respect for others, regardless of their religion, colour, views and sense of identity.

This concern takes on particular importance in the reality around us, in which certain attitudes of intolerance and respect for the dignity of others are becoming increasingly dangerous.

The project coordinator and the author:

Danuta Kopińska-Kołowacik