I've been teaching for 15years and have been working on projects related to the memory of WWII for over 10years. At first, I created small projects: a day trip to a place linked to the Resistance or the Nazi occupation, exhibitions, analyses, testimonials. For the past 6years, the projects have been larger, including a school trip. I prepare the students for months, introducing them to the field, learning outside classroom, so that they can feel history. We have been to Warsaw/Treblinka while studying Korczak, to Buchenwald... Sachsenhausen is also in the works.
Within the next three years, I would like to create a project on the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. After the trips, the part that concludes the project is very important to me and to the students because it anchors their discoveries, critical thinking and reflection by sharing them with the public. I constantly fight against the idea that you have to be an adult to visit a camp or study this dark part of history. My students, even at 14 years old, are proud of what they have learned, proud to have the knowledge to be more vigilant in society. A
I write articles, give lectures and organise memorial trips for adults. In everything I do, my greatest wish is to raise awareness and provide ways to take action against fascist,revisionist,totalitarian ideas. I live to pass on memories and honour the men and women who stood up against such ideas
For many years, she (born in 1984) has been working as a teacher at a Belgian reform school (“Ecole de Futuire”) and organizing trips to the Buchenwald Memorial and other places of remembrance with young people.
What makes these trips special is the active involvement of the young people as “peer teachers” and in the organization of the memorial trips.
This not only achieves a high level of empathy for the memorial work, but also encourages young people to pass on what they have learned or heard to their peers.
Jill Lampaert also succeeds in involving teachers and parents in this dedicated remembrance work, thus enabling intergenerational communication.
Jill Lampaert, born in 1984, has been involved in remembrance work in the Walloon part of Belgium at a Belgian reform school (“Ecole de futur” in Mons) for many years. For four years, the “School of the Future” has been focusing on interdisciplinary projects. The topic of remembrance work is also covered in geography and French lessons.
This teaching method is based on the method developed by Janusz Korczak, a Polish-Jewish pediatrician and author, pioneer of children's rights, who was deported and died in the Treblinka extermination camp in 1942. It emphasizes the equality of all members of the class. Together with the War Heritage Institute (Brussels) and its educational director Jean Cardoen, she has prepared and successfully implemented international memorial trips to the Auschwitz and Buchenwald memorial sites. What is special about these trips is that she does not carry out such commemorative activities with an “exclusive” circle of young people, but in April this year she took part in an international youth meeting at the Buchenwald Memorial with almost 90 participants from her school (including several teachers).
The young people, some of whom were only 14 or 15 years old, were very well prepared in terms of content, so that the memorial trip could build on a solid foundation. This became apparent in mid-June, when the young people presented the results of the trip to their parents and interested members of the public at a public event.
Jill Lampaert is known for her meticulous and age-appropriate preparation of the complex content of a memorial trip. She passes this knowledge on to her colleagues, enabling an educational transfer. Jill Lampaert has already reported on her experiences in France, Italy, and Spain, where she spoke about her work together with Jean Cardoen at the 19th regular congress of the Fédération Internationale des Résistants (FIR).
For the coming year, she is preparing a trip to the Sachsenhausen Memorial with several Belgian groups, again with the support of the War Heritage Institute. Based on these preparations, a pool of educational material is being created in Belgium that can also be used in the future by other institutions for trips with young people to concentration camp memorial sites.