In spite of the torrential rain, eighteen pupils from Years 12 and 13 at Guiseley School and Woodkirk High Specialist Science School came together to celebrate twenty years of German Unity, marking the official anniversary of Reunification on October 3rd 1990. In the morning, the students were given the historical context and introduced to the key themes of the period by Professor Paul Cooke whose lecture was entitled ‘German Unification Twenty Years In’. They then attended two workshops which concentrated in more detail on the cultural representations of these themes; pop music was the focus of ‘Wieder schwarz-rot-gold? Mia's controversial ‘Was es Ist’ as a mirror of German identity after reunification’ by Giles Harrington and Helen Finch, and film the subject matter of ‘Ostalgie and Good Bye, Lenin!’ by Richard Boffey and Chris Homewood.
After lunch, the pupils worked in groups of four or five to create short segments of a television documentary about the Tag der deutschen Einheit. Bettina Suarez Y Weber introduced the activity, encouraging students to think about documentaries and to plan the contents of their segments. During the final workshop of the day, we watched the finished documentary which included a dramatisation of the effects of the Berlin Wall, a talk show discussion about Reunification, a roving reporter interview revealing contemporary attitudes to the concepts of East and West and a sketch showing everyday life and opinions about Unity. Students will all receive their own copy of the documentaries. We would like to thank all those who contributed to making the day such a success: the members of staff from the German Department at the University of Leeds, the student ambassadors and of course the visiting schools.
