„Minorities in Europe“: The fifth (virtual) meeting (17.05.2021)

07.09.2021

The last meeting in scholastic year 2020 / 21 took place on Monday, March 17; it lasted for maore than two hours.

The Netherlands participated with two presentations about the Friesians (quotations from ancient historians; one student interviewing her grandparents), then about slavery (in Rome, in Greece, in the Netherlands) and consequences of slavery in nowadays Netherlands, then in the same way also about homosexuality (in ancient Greece, in ancient Rome and in today’s Netherlands).

Thessaloniki participated with “Roma people in Thessaloniki and stereotypes about them”. Especially appreciated was the short film on Roma living in Thessaloniki; another student presented her research on Jews in Thessaloniki including her interview with a senior Jewish woman.

Later Brasov both in German and in English presented Romania as a country of diversity. In Romania today there are 19 minorities representing 11% of the population; The German minority (which may be the best-known of them) right now makes only 0.2% of the total population. The meeting closed with a presentation on Transylvanian Saxons (= ”Siebenbürgener Sachsen”) and their fortified churches, including many pictures and also some information on Swabian descendants.

All five meetings were appreciated as very successful, as they all offered colourful and diverse first steps into a variety of very fascinating topics. As awareness should be raised, how Europe or European countries deal with minorities, this virtual exchange (which was, of course, accompanied by mutual get-to-know sessions and short introductions of the participating schools) was more than successful. We will be looking forward to the following collaboration, which hopefully then will be possible via face-to-face meetings.