(No) Children’s Stories Exhibition returned to Chernivtsi
In May-June 2024, Chernivtsi once again invited the interactive exhibition (No) Children’s Stories. This time, it was hosted by Chernivtsi Gymnasium No. 17, and initiated by history and law teacher Varvara Bodnariuk. The students of 7-9 grades volunteered to host the exhibition and during the month of the event, they gave tours to more than 400 people, including students from their school, other schools in the city, and even the mayor of Chernivtsi and a foreign delegation from Dusseldorf (Germany) with the mayor of the city.
Here is some traditional feedback from the project's participants.
"I liked the fact that we are free and we can express our opinions to others as we want, to organise the exhibition as we want; I also liked that we can easily communicate with visitors and that they can also freely state their opinions. It's a good experience and an example of the struggle of the past and the present. I could focus on many points of the 11 stories, and each time I did it in a completely different way. This exhibition taught me to be more open, to communicate, to accept myself as I am." ( Katia, guide)
"As a guide of the exhibition (No) Children’s Stories, I liked the fact that I ... I can sit as I want, talk about these stories, how I feel about them, and the fact that we are holding this exhibition for our age group, who constantly asked why these stories are not in the textbook, analysed and compared them with contemporary events, and often we still heard that there are still stereotypes, prejudices, propaganda, hate speech between teenagers who are quite vulnerable and these moments can affect our lives. This is a challenge for today." (Anton, guide)
"Before this, I had never openly expressed my position on the issues of the exhibition, I really thought that our society had survived these events, but not. We have to learn these lessons of history, the stories of ordinary people who demonstrated strength of spirit, courage, tolerance - when there was probably no place for it." (Sonia, guide)
"The experience and communication gained is truly priceless. ... One thing we realised when we met the community from Düsseldorf is that adults need to hear these stories from our mouths. They were sympathetic and understanding. My parents, who are always courageous and somewhat reserved, felt the fear of the events that the heroes of our exhibition lived through, but it inspired them and motivated them to help fight even harder for our future." (Sasha and Timur, guides)
We are sincerely grateful to our Chernivtsi colleagues, the exhibition guides, for their inspired work. And with the start of the new school year, we hope to continue our cooperation with educational institutions in other cities. Please contact us!
As a reminder, the project and exhibition (No) Children’s Stories was created by the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies and is being implemented with the support of the international project Learning to Remember of the Düsseldorf Jewish community.
[School website and photo gallery]
