How have migration, persecution and forced displacement connected Serbia and Germany across generations? Connecting Stories invites young people to explore four interconnected histories through personal stories, shared evidence and an interactive video quiz.
With the support of the European Union Erasmus+ program, KA210-SCH Small-scale Partnerships in School Education
Connecting Stories is a free bilingual digital learning module created by Terraforming and the Arolsen Archives to help young people in Serbia and Germany investigate migration as a connected European history.
It begins with a transnational chapter of European history: the experiences of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia who sought routes through the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, including present-day Serbia, during the 1930s and the Second World War.
Through personal stories, students encounter them not only as refugees and targets of persecution, but as historical actors with identities, relationships, values and agency. Their stories illuminate resilience and resistance, courage and generosity, mutual assistance and efforts to preserve dignity under restricted circumstances.
Students also examine the reasons for flight, the dangers and restrictions people faced, and the changing responses of state authorities, local communities and Jewish aid networks. The module preserves the historical specificity of Nazi persecution and the Holocaust while presenting Jewish history as an integral part of Europe’s shared history and heritage.
This human-centered approach extends across all four chapters, presenting migrants and refugees as individuals who act, decide, help others and respond to changing circumstances.
The video production took place in Serbia. The module was produced in German and Serbian, with subtitles and voice-over elements, and is hosted permanently on the Arolsen School online platform.
It is designed principally for young people aged 14–25 and for educators in formal and non-formal settings. Historical content was reviewed and fact-checked by independent Serbian and German subject-matter experts.
Students in Serbia and Germany work with the same core material. Guided by two young hosts, Kalina from Serbia and Uli from Germany, they examine shared evidence, compare perspectives and form their own reasoned positions through an interactive video quiz.
Participation shaped the final product. Seven face-to-face student workshops were held during development, including four dedicated testing and feedback workshops in schools in Serbia and Germany.
A total of 160 student and teacher feedback surveys informed revisions to the content, visual design and usability. German and Serbian teachers also helped create accompanying lesson plans that support preparation before the quiz, structured reflection afterward and integration into regular teaching. These teaching units are now published.
Eight teacher-training sessions reached 131 educators, 101 of them face-to-face.
Two networking events in Belgrade and Frankfurt also connected 32 educational and civil society stakeholders.
The project’s decisive cross-border choice was to give learners in both countries the same core material. German and Serbian students do not receive separate national stories with predetermined conclusions.
Instead, they encounter shared evidence and questions, compare perspectives, test their knowledge, and form their own reasoned positions.
Kalina, a student from Serbia, and Uli, from Germany, guide the experience as young hosts in an explanatory video accompanied by an interactive quiz. Learners must respond as the story advances, turning viewing into active inquiry and discussion.
From this starting point, four video-quiz chapters trace migration between the two societies across time:
Jewish flight from Nazi persecution through Yugoslavia
Serbian labor migration to Germany from the 1960s
Displacement caused by the wars of the 1990s and the arrival of refugees from the former Yugoslavia in Germany
The Balkan route and public responses to refugees and migrants since 2015
Serbia and Germany appear at different times as places of departure, transit, reception and decision-making.
Evaluation demonstrated both the module’s educational relevance and its potential for continued use:
Updated platform analytics and documented additional classroom use show continued engagement after the Erasmus+ project ended.
The purpose is not to equate historically distinct events, but to enable learners to recognize interconnected histories, changing roles and recurring questions about borders, belonging, exclusion, assistance and individual responsibility.
Implemented from 1 March to 31 December 2025 as an Erasmus+ KA210-SCH small-scale partnership, Connecting Stories was jointly developed by the Arolsen Archives and Terraforming through shared historical research and interpretation, pedagogical design, digital production, localization, testing and educator engagement.
The result is a sustainable European heritage resource: freely accessible, reusable, rooted in Jewish history and built to turn shared memory into informed dialogue, empathy and democratic participation.
Terraforming and the Arolsen Archives will continue teacher training and promotion, use feedback and platform analytics to improve the materials, and seek European partners interested in adapting the model to other interconnected histories.
Connecting Stories is a collaborative project between the Arolsen Archives and Terraforming that empowers educators in Germany and Serbia to teach about migration and integration through a fact-based, multimedia approach. The project provides an interactive digital module and training for school teachers, enabling them to lead thoughtful classroom discussions on migration, inclusion, and civic engagement across Europe.
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