For 20 Years: Academic Dialogue at a Historic Site
Since 2005, the Ravensbrück Memorial Museum has hosted the European Summer School during the last week of August each year. This intergenerational conference brings together an interdisciplinary group of students, scholars, multipliers in historical-political education, and other interested participants. The programme includes lectures, workshops, thematic guided tours, film screenings, and evening cultural events.
The Summer School addresses current topics in historical research and in debates on cultures of remembrance. Three main themes provide the programme’s framework: National Socialist rule in Europe, women’s and gender history, and critical engagement with European memory history. Particular attention is always given to the history of the Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp. The aim is to link academic research at concentration camp memorial sites with that conducted at universities and research institutions, to promote scholarly exchange, and to strengthen regional, national, and international networks. A special focus is placed on supporting early-career researchers, who present current topic-related theses as part of a research forum.
Camps – Spaces – Neighbours. Concentration Camps and their Surroundings
This year’s European Summer School from 31 August 2026 until 4 September 2026 is dedicated to the theme of the surroundings of concentration camps and the associated stories of relationships and encounters. The focus is on local searches for traces, current research approaches, questions of visibility, and the connections between camp sites, businesses and local residents.
The Summer School is organised in close collaboration with a project group of scholars from various disciplines, which is reconstituted each year according to the thematic focus. This group develops the thematic priorities, recommends speakers, and moderates individual programme sessions. In recent years, the event has been held in cooperation with, among others, the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History Potsdam, the Leibniz Research Alliance “Value of the Past,” and the Center for Research on Antisemitism at Technische Universität Berlin.
The European Summer School Ravensbrück was initiated by the then Brandenburg Minister of Science, Research and Culture, Prof. Dr. Johanna Wanka, together with the then Director of the Ravensbrück Memorial Museum, Prof. Dr. Sigrid Jacobeit.
