Grammar (for exams until 2025): Video playlist

‘Stolpersteine’ (literally: stumbling stones) are commemorative stones placed in pavements in several German cities. They honour many of the Jews lost during the holocaust. German schools have to teach students about the holocaust and the film shows the reaction of a class of thirteen year olds to the way their teacher tackles this difficult topic. He says that they have an advantage over people of his generation, as they are further removed from the events, so can be more objective. The artist who creates the stones has been impressed by the children’s interest and commitment, as they have raised enough money to sponsor 33 stones in their city. The artist feels that he has achieved something if a conversation begins when someone sees one of the stones in the pavement. The children feel a real connection with the victims whose names are on the stones and feel that they must not be forgotten to avoid such things happening again.

This clip could facilitate various discussions eg What are Stolpersteine? Who pays for them? How have the Germans’ attitudes to the Holocaust changed? What advantage do today’s children have compared to their parents’ or grandparents’ generations? How does the teacher try to engage them? How do today’s children feel about what happened? This could be supplemented with a series of questions to be answered in German based on the German parts of the clip, eg ‘Wie alt sind die Schüler?’, ‘Wie findet der Lehrer das Thema?’, ‘Was hat Nina gelesen?’, ‘Wer ist Günter Demnig?’, ‘Warum ist die Schülerin traurig?’.