A visit to the temporary exhibition entitled “Faces of Aid. Land of Oświęcim Residents in the Service of Humanity” concluded the first edition of the Heritage of Remembrance Academy.
The Academy is a joint initiative of the Remembrance Museum, the Lesser Poland Teacher Training Center and the St. Maximilian Center in Harmęże. Participants met at the Remembrance Museum in March for an inaugural conference entitled “The Role of Museum Education in Preserving the Legacy of Memory,” and in the following weeks visited the permanent exhibition at the Remembrance Museum and “Memory Clichés. Labyrinths” by Marian Kolodziej at the St. Maximilian Center in Harmęże, they also watched the film “Courier Girl.” Finally, at the end of the Academy, they had the opportunity to meet at the expanded exhibition “Faces of Aid. Land of Oświęcim Residents in the Service of Humanity” located at the Remembrance Museum building.
Almost every activity was accompanied by presentations of specific solutions for using the museum space and museum resources in the educational process, prepared by Remembrance Museum educators – Anita Bury and Joanna Cebulska – who outlined the offer of workshops and museum lessons in detail. They also showed materials from the website www.edukacja.muzeumpamieci.pl, which can be creatively used during lessons at school.
As Joanna Cebulska pointed out how the first edition of the Heritage of Remembrance Academy has fulfilled the aims it was set up to achieve, such as identifying with local history and referring to it in the educational process, developing the habit of using the museum’s rich offer, drawing teachers’ attention to the museum as a place of education, and presenting an offer of classes for students with different educational needs.
“There are already people keen to take part in the second edition. There have also been many ideas for new activities related to learning about the Land of Oświęcim in terms of history, culture and ethnography. These would involve trips to historically interesting places and field trips with members of associations and lovers of local history. Another interesting idea is to organize a bicycle rally along the trail of memorial sites,” said Joanna Cebulska.
