The Lasting Formation

Heimatkunde (German for “local history”) was the name of the school subject that was supposed to cement “attitudes, convictions and behaviour in favour of the world view and morals of the working class”. There was not only the mandate to pass on knowledge. There was also that of raising the child to become a socialist personality, explains the former headmaster of the former secondary school in Bärenklau/Niederlausitz in Germany. Director Christian Bäucker, himself a pupil there until 1990, evokes old ghosts and memories in the school building, which has remained untouched ever since. In an often touchingly open dialogue, teachers and students from that time help to revisit the past.… >>>