by Veronika Schallhart and Thiemo Kronlechner [University of Vienna]
The University of Vienna and National Socialism – through the lenses of academic secondary school students.
In October 2025, two workshop days with school students in the final year of academic secondary school took place. The aim of the project was to teach the students about the damage that the University of Vienna, and thus Austria, suffered due to the loss of academics and students during National Socialism. Our objective is to explore innovative educational approaches that link formal and non-formal education – in CU Remember we call those MemoriaLinks.
During the first day of the workshop on 9 October, the students explored sites commemorating National Socialism in the Main Building of the University of Vienna with the help of a multimedia guide. The second day of the workshop on 14 October took place in the Archive of the University of Vienna, where the workshop participants had the opportunity to learn about the individual fates of academics and students expelled from the University of Vienna. Based on the second workshop, short videos will be created about ten expelled individuals, which will be presented on 19 November.
We are conducting this first pilot project for innovative teaching formats with two classes in the 8th grade of the Gymnasium am Augarten academic secondary school. Two classes with students in the final year of academic secondary school are participating, supervised by three teachers. Sign language interpreters and speech-to-text interpreters are present to interpret the workshops for three students who are deaf or hard of hearing.
First workshop on 9 October, Main Building
After a welcome and a brief introduction to the topic, the school students split up into eight groups and set off on their own exploration tour. On their journey through the Main Building, they used the Actionbound app. We have stored tasks and quiz questions for the students in advance, allowing them to discover places of remembrance in the Aula, in the Arcaded Courtyard and on the upper floor of the Main Building at their own pace. The tasks to be solved varied – we asked them to find specific locations, read texts, and submit written statements, voice messages and photos. The quiz questions mostly ask for the names of well-known expelled persons. To help them find their way around the building, the students received the brochure ‘Places of remembrance. A Tour of the Main Building of the University of Vienna’. Most students took about 1.5 hours to complete the tour. After a break, the results were compared and discussed.
Second workshop on 14 October, Archive of the University of Vienna
During the second workshop, the students had access to the ceremonial hall and reading room of the Archive of the University of Vienna. We started with a short presentation by Nina Knieling, Head of the Archive of the University of Vienna. She briefly introduced the Archive and Herbert Posch from the Department of Contemporary History gave a brief overview of relevant analogue and digital sources. Afterwards, Nina Knieling, Herbert Posch and Ulrike Denk, deputy head of the Archive of the University of Vienna, presented original sources to the students at three stations and were available to answer their questions. The Archive is part of the Vienna University Library, the largest library in Austria.
More about the MemoriaLink-Workshops at the University of Vienna soon at our blog…
All images by © Alexander Bachmayer & Veronika Schallhart