Dear visitor,

Welcome to the new Confronting Memories website! On this site you’ll find lots of useful resources to help you in your work, whether you’re a history teacher looking for learning activities and inspiration, a student who wants to find out a bit more about certain WWII topics, or someone who has an interest in history education.

First and foremost, we have our lesson materials. These materials, which focus on different aspects of WWII, were created in 2020 and 2021 by international teams of teachers from Belarus, Germany, Moldova, Poland, Russia and Ukraine. This ensures that our aim of multiperspectivity – presenting and nurturing an understanding and sensitivity of perspectives outside of national narratives – has been met. Watch our short promotional video to find out more about the creation of the materials.

The lesson materials are organised by topic, and for each topic there is a 45- and 90-minute lesson plan, complete with all necessary materials, including worksheets, sources and further reading. Feel free to adapt the plans and activities to suit your personal needs and the needs of your group. As well as the lesson materials, we have video content (with accompanying exercises) for use in the classroom. If you use our materials, we’d love to hear your feedback! We’re reachable via email or on Twitter and Facebook.

Our ‘Different Wars’ exhibition, developed in 2016, has also been digitised and is available to view on the website. The exhibition focuses on the presentation of WWII in national school textbooks from Czechia, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland and Russia, and was the impetus for us to begin creating our own lesson materials. 

Stay up to date with our ongoing project, “Talking History, Talking Future”, in the news section of the website, and keep an eye on upcoming events. This project is supported by the German MFA and the EU.

Kristina Smolijaninovaitė & Marcus Chavasse