BRÜCKE FÜR DIE ZUKUNFT
In May 2025, the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War will be commemorated. To mark this occasion, the Blue House Breisach, a memorial and educational centre for the history of the Jews in the Upper Rhine region, launched the project “Bridge for the Future – Pont pour l’avenir.”
The Rhine bridge at Breisach serves as the historical starting point for this Franco-German remembrance project. The title also reflects the symbolic idea of building bridges in many forms.
JYoung people from Baden and Alsace are encouraged to explore different perspectives on the history and present-day realities of the Upper Rhine region and its people. At the heart of the project are the lives of those who suffered under Nazi persecution.
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> Battery Dance Company and the Blue House
On 8 May 2025, the anniversary will be marked with performances and activities centred on the Breisach bridge, transforming it into a stage for dance. The Blue House has invited the internationally renowned Battery Dance Company (BDC) from New York to lead workshops for teachers and students. Together, they will create choreographies that reflect the project’s biographical research and incorporate the young participants’ own experiences, allowing them to connect with the stories on a physical and emotional level.
MEMORIAL
In October 1940, more than 5,600 Jewish people from Baden were forced onto seven trains that crossed the Breisach railway bridge on their way to the internment camp at Gurs in southwestern France. How can their memory be preserved?
How can other groups who suffered under Nazi injustice also be remembered? And what significance do memories of wartime events and the suffering experienced in Baden and Alsace between 1870 and 1945 still hold today?
Biographical Work
French and German school classes are invited to research and explore the biographies of individuals who suffered under Nazi injustice, including both well-known and lesser-known life stories from their immediate or wider surroundings. The focus is on Alsatian and Baden resistance fighters, Sinti and Roma, Jewish individuals, forced labourers, prisoners of war, people in psychiatric institutions, and Alsatians who were forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht.
Historical Research
The project involves historians who have been tasked with addressing unanswered questions. These include the deportation of Baden’s Jewish population to Gurs, its connection to the de facto annexation of Alsace, the expulsion of the Jewish population of Alsace, and the histories of groups whose lives were closely linked to the railway line.
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