The days when teachers stood at the blackboard, drilling lessons into their students, are fading fast—and for good reason. What follows is an account of a project that set out to confront young people from Germany and Greece with history that is anything but uncontroversial. “Tracing a Shared History” was the title of a weeklong German-Greek youth exchange that took place in late August in Vitsa, a picturesque mountain village about a half-hour’s drive from Ioannina.
The program is part of a multi-year series organized by the Greek NGO Epekeina Chora (“The Land Beyond”) together with the German-Greek Association Berlin/Exantas, and funded by the German-Greek Youth Foundation.
It has long been clear that we learn best when we share experiences and discuss differing perspectives within a group. That holds especially true when the subject is contentious and demands critical debate. Admittedly, there are seminar locations more convenient than remote Vitsa. But when the goal is to trace, confront and learn from history – as the organizers promised in their prospectus – few places could be more fitting.
During the German occupation of Greece from 1941 to 1944, Wehrmacht units committed countless crimes in the region: looting, burning villages, massacring civilians, and deporting nearly the entire Jewish population – later murdered in extermination camps. This past hangs like a shadow over German-Greek relations and still surfaces whenever Germans and Greeks sit down together to discuss their relations.
The organizers asked me to present the findings from my current research on Greek perceptions of Germany and German views of Greece. Ten young adults from each country took part in the academic exercise. I welcome every chance to speak with young people – especially when it comes to my favorite subject these days: German-Greek relations. Yet my lecture, and the discussion that followed, was hardly the highlight of the week. Far more powerful than cold PowerPoint statistics from the world of opinion research, it seemed to me, were the participants’ own experiences: exchanges with locals at historic sites, engaged debates in plenary and small groups – and conversations over dinner or lunch in the taverna.
One place carries particular weight in the relationship between the two countries: Lingiades. On October 3, 1943, German soldiers massacred 92 people there, most of them women and children. Today a memorial stands at the site. When German President Joachim Gauck visited in 2014 – more than 70 years later – he delivered a speech about German responsibility, asking “with shame and pain” for forgiveness and announcing the creation of the German-Greek Youth Foundation. After years of political wrangling, it Institute with branches in Thessaloniki and Leipzig began its work in 2021. Gauck’s message was unmistakable: these atrocities must not be forgotten. Ever since, remembrance culture has been a cornerstone of Germany’s Greece policy.
But in Greece, official remembrance projects do not meet with universal approval. In many martyr communities that suffered under German war crimes, reactions range from quiet criticism to open rejection. To critics, programs funded by the German government -including the Youth Foundation – serve as little more than a fig leaf, a distraction from demands for reparations.
In Vitsa, the participants tackled these questions head-on, guided by Berlin-based seminar leaders Olga Drossou and Andreas Poltermann. National fault lines were nowhere in sight. From both sides, we heard the view that the crimes of the past must serve as a lesson for future generations. Participants also stressed that such topics rarely appear in official school curricula, leaving large gaps in knowledge. Initiatives like this can help to fill them.
“I had never heard of these events before,” said one German participant after visiting the memorial in Lingiades. “I will never forget these impressions – and I’ll pass them on to my children.”
Dr. Ronald Meinardus is Senior Research Fellow and Coordinator of Research Projects on Greek-German Relations at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP).
