Teaching about Race and Gender Exclusion Timelines (TARGET)

Europäisch-jüdische Geschichte, Antisemitismus und Rechtsextremismus

Projektteam am MMZ: Martina Bitunjac
Fördergeber: EU Programme: Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV-2024-CITIZENS-REM-HOLOCAUST)
Laufzeit: 24 Monate

Beneficiaries – co-applicants:
Centre for Promotion of Tolerance and Holocaust Remembrance, Zagreb, Croatia
Iaşi Municipality, Romania
Associated Partners:
Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum für europäisch-jüdische Studien, Universität Potsdam, Germany
The University Al. I. Cuza of Iaşi, The Faculty of History, Romania
Iaşi County Network/ Inspectorate of Schools
Jewish Film Festival Zagreb / Festival suvremenog židovskog filma Zagreb, Croatia
World Jewish Congress – Svjetski židovski kongres-Zagreb

The project’s goal is to increase knowledge and provide a more nuanced understanding of the exclusionary policies of extreme right movements and regimes of the 1930s and 1940s whose collaboration resulted in limiting fundamental rights of groups of people, persecution, the Holocaust and other war crimes. The interconnectedness of exclusionary, racist politics of belonging and specific gender roles system will be explored, with appropriate timeline established, and make accessible to youth and wider public in the form of efficient learning tools and remembrance forms. The project aims to counter distortion and trivialisation of the Holocaust history in different European societies where antisemitism and persecution of Jews and Roma are often misinterpreted as being forced upon by Nazi occupiers only.

The project involves organisations of different type from Croatia, Germany and Romania, pooling resources to achieve objectives through a series of activities: exchange and transfer of good practices, Holocaust commemoration, academic conference on gender and the extreme right movements, creation of a pilot set of educational materials and workshops with students and educators, design of a multimedia interactive website, education of educators, public presentations and dissemination at the European level.

The key objective is to transform historical facts and interpretations into innovative educational, interactive digital material accessible to youth and general public. We will develop learning tools about exclusionary politics of extreme right movements and regimes with both racialised ethnicity and gender perspective included, with appropriate new timeline (1930s-1940s), visualise cross-national links between extreme right groups and movements, use these learning tools in education of specific target groups, and ensure transfer of knowledge and good practices among project partners in the fields of memory work, Holocaust education, musealisation and commemoration.

The Specific objectives

Objective 1: To develop and create learning tools about exclusionary politics of extreme right movements and regimes with both racialised ethnicity and gender perspective included, with appropriate new timeline (1930s–1940s). The objective is to transform historical facts and interpretations into educational, interactive, multimedia material accessible to youth and the general public.

Objective 2: To explore, establish and visualize cross-national links between extreme right groups and movements, including German Nazi, Italian fascist, and other local actors (Croatian Ustasha, Romanian Iron Guard and others) in 1930s and 1940s.

Objective 3: To create and use a multimedia learning tool about the exclusionary politics of extreme right movements in 1930s and 1940s in education of specific target groups: teachers (for future use in classroom), law enforcement and other state stakeholders (for learning about transnational history of extremism and antisemitism).

Objective 4: To ensure transfer of knowledge and good practices among project partners and to open up discussions about innovative forms of in situ commemorations, presentations of content in both museum/exhibition spaces and in the digital sphere, role of witnesses and the second generation of survivor families in the future of the Holocaust commemoration, and other pertinent questions that can incite new actions and models of work in this field.

Project teams
Project Coordinator: Sandra Prlenda Perkovac

Project team 1 – Objective 1: Developing learning tools – content and resources

  • Martina Bitunjac, PhD, head of the team
  • Ljiljana Dobrovšak, PhD, member
  • Alexandru-Florin Platon, PhD, member

Project team 2 / Objective 2: Visualisation and multimedia

  • Nataša Popović, head of the team
  • Vladimir Cviljušac, PhD, member

Project team 3 / Objective 3: Educating educators and dissemination

  • Adriana Baciu, head of the team
  • Ionut Nistor, PhD, member
  • Florin Platon, PhD, member
  • Antonija Tomičić Čagalj, member
  • Nika Bobić, member

Project team 4 / Objective 4: Memory work exchange and transfer of knowledge

  • Elena Farca, head of the team
  • Adriana Baciu, member
  • Nataša Popović, member
  • Martina Bitunjac, PhD, member