Dirk Erkelenz & Terry Mandel at Königin Luise Schule, 19 October 2023
We’re thrilled to announce that Dirk Erkelenz, the remarkable history teacher and research scientist whose class assignment seeded The Unerasure Projekt, is one of seven 2024 recipients of the prestigious Obermayer Award, which acknowledges extraordinary German contributions to remembrance culture and anti-racism. Leading his nomination, I met many other descendants whose lives were also touched by the research his students do into the lives and fates of Jewish girls who, like my mother, attended their school during the Nazi era. Register to watch a rebroadcast of the award ceremony on 29 January 2024 from the famed Rotes Rathaus, home of the Berlin Parliament.
Herr Dr. Erkelenz has asked The Unerasure Projekt to package, adapt, and widely share his pedagogy so as many students around the world as possible can make sense of their own histories through this hands-on experience. Our first experiential learning programs for students, government agencies, and business will launch in Germany this year.