What is Centropa and what will I find on this website?

What is Centropa Student and what will I find on centropastudent.org?

I watched one of the biographical short films and want to learn more about this particular story. Does the Centropa website provide additional information?

I am looking for a particular biography. Where can I find it?

I  am looking for particular family photos. Where can I find them?

I am looking for films that deal with a particular topic. Is there a tool to search for films by keywords?

What is Border Jumping?

I am a teacher and want my class to take part in the Border Jumping Community. What do I have to do?

Are there any costs or fees?

Does Centropa Student offer teaching material?

How do I get a password to log in to the teaching material?

How can I contribute teaching material to www.centropastudent.org?

Who can I contact?

What is Centropa and what will I find on this website?

Centropa is a non-profit NGO dedicated to preserving Jewish family stories in Central and Eastern Europe.

Since 2000, Centropa has interviewed close to 1,300 elderly Jews in 15 countries. We never use video nor do we focus primarily on the Holocaust. Instead, we collect and digitize family snapshots - tens of thousands of them. 

We audio taped, transcribed and translated these biographical interviews in order to enter them into a searchable, keyworded online database; you can also find all our family photos there. 

Additionally, we have been turning our best stories into more than 20 short films on Jewish family stories, and these films have become the cornerstone of our educational project Centropa Student.

What is Centropa Student and what will I find on centropastudent.org?

Created for high schools in Europe, North America, and Israel, Centropa Student is the web and dvd-based educational project of Centropa. Our goal is to bring Jewish history to life in innovative ways. From our most compelling interviews, we have produced a series of short, personal films on Jewish family stories before, during and after the Holocaust. For each film, we provide teaching materials that were developed and tested by classroom teachers in the US and Europe. On our Border Jumping platform, schools can upload their own class projects in interact with schools from other countries.  For more questions, please contact our educational coordinator, Mr. Fabian Ruehle.

I watched one of the biographical short films and want to learn more about this particular story. Does the Centropa website provide additional information?

Yes. After you have watched the film, just click one of the four icons on the right-hand side. On clicking the first two icons, you will find the complete interview and all the photos associated with the respective biography. If you click the Study Guide symbol, you will find excerpts from the interview and a collection of articles and maps that provide further information about the film. The fourth icon takes you to our password protected teaching material area, with classroom-tested lesson plans and other useful resources. Registering is free and takes only a few minutes (not-registered users can also access a public teaching material section via the banner on the top. Please note, however, that this section does not contain all our teaching material.).

I am looking for a particular biography. Where can I find it?

Click here to search for biographies by name or country. 

I am looking for particular family photos. Where can I find them?

Click here to search for photos by family name, city or country. If you are looking for photos about a particular topic, check out the keyword search at the bottom of this page.

I am looking for films that deal with a particular topic. Is there a tool to search for films by keywords?

Unfortunately, this function is not yet available, as we simply do not have the money for it. For now, please content yourself with the following selection of often-requested topics:

Kindertransport: Lilli Tauber "A Suitcase Full of Memories"
Jewish life during Communism: Jindrich Lion "My Escape from Prague"
Sephardic Stories: Guler Orgun "A Turkish-Jewish-Muslim Tale"
Diaspora: Kurt Brodmann "The Story of the Brodmann Familiy"

What is Border Jumping?

Our Border Jumping Community is an interactive webpage for students. Here, each school can register and share their own projects; the students can not only present their school, but also document their city and its Jewish history online. In doing so, they create their own teaching material and actively share it with thousands of students all over Europe, Israel and the United States. For more information, please contact Mr. Fabian Ruehle, our educational coordinator.

I am a teacher and want my class to take part in the Border Jumping Community. What do I have to do?

The first step will be to register directly on the Border Jumping website. Via email, you will then get a subscription letter with an introductory link collection and a password with which you can access and organize your school's page. You can present all your projects and pictures on this website. 

Are there any costs or fees?

No, thanks to our sponsors, all services are provided for free.

Does Centropa Student offer teaching material? If yes, do I have to pay for it?

Yes, we do provide teaching material and no, you do not have to pay. Together with our pilot teachers, we have compiled a selection of detailed lesson plans. They include exercises, work sheets, films and recommended links.

We have our teaching material divided in two sections: first, there is the public section that you can access straight from our movie website. Just click "Teaching Material (Public Section)" right below the heading. Here you will find worksheets, recommended articles and some lesson plans.

To get access to the full list of lesson plans and additional teaching material, click any film and you will find the link on the right-hand side. Note that this section is saved by password! 

As mentioned above, all the teaching material is provided for free; the full list of material is password-protected only due to copyright reasons. 

How do I get a password to log in to the full list of teaching material? 

You must have your school registered at the Border Jumping Platform. The password that you will find in the confirmation email allows you to log in to the Border Jumping community as well as to the teaching material.

How can I contribute teaching material to www.centropastudent.org?

If you are a teacher and interested in contributing teaching material on using Centropa films in the classroom, we would be happy to publish it on our website. For further information, please contact our Educational Coordinator Fabian Rühle

Who can I contact?

For further information about Centropa, please contact Edward Serotta (Director)
For further information about our educational projects, please contact Fabian Rühle (Educational Coordinator)
For further information regarding technical and registration issues, please contact Ouriel Morgensztern (Technical Director)