Ruth Weiner, Holocaust educator, addresses University of Merseburg and UConn social work students during a day-long conference that was part of an academic exchange program. (School of Social Work\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cAs social workers, it\u2019s crucial to understand the history, theory, and multiple perspectives of previous and current social systems, in order to effect change,\u201d said associate professor Lisa Werkmeister-Rozas, chair of the School of Social Work\u2019s Human Oppression curriculum unit and coordinator of the exchange program, which is now in its third year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe program gives students an opportunity to reflect comparatively about similar cases and patterns of conflict,\u201d she said. \u201cMy students learn they can\u2019t just take their models and say \u2018this is what you have to do,\u2019 because the systemic inequities their German peers struggle with are different. And this makes my students re-examine what they\u2019re doing and question whether it\u2019s right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Learning from each other<\/strong><\/p>\nIn back-to-back presentations, UConn students reported on research they conducted in Germany, while their visitors discussed social work systems in their once ethnically homogenous country, which is now dealing with the legacy of that massive social and demographic transformation that has taken place since the end of World War II.<\/p>\n
Merseburg master\u2019s student Marcel Pytka supervises a speech therapy program for 226 preschool children in Halle, a town in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt near Merseburg that was once part of socialist East Germany. German reunification in 1989, which ended the Cold War division of the communist East and capitalist West, has improved living standards there, but has also generated waves of immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, giving rise to new political and social tensions, he said.<\/p>\n
More than 40 percent of the children he works with do not speak or write German, said Pytka, noting that Saxony-Anhalt has invested heavily in child-care facilities and employs many social workers in an effort to help integrate these children into German society.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe demonstrate that these speech support investments are worthwhile,\u201d he said, stressing that fluency in German is a prerequisite to the \u2018good health\u2019 of society. \u201cThis preschool program will have important economic payoffs in terms of quality of later opportunities in life for these children. The state must do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
As social workers, it\u2019s crucial to understand the history, theory, and multiple perspectives of previous and current social systems, in order to effect change. — Lisa Werkmeister-Rozas, associate professor of social work<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Going beyond the war-movie Nazi stereotypes that are familiar in the U.S., Lisa Vallee, a UConn social work master\u2019s student, is studying how present-day Germans \u2013 taught by law about Nazi horrors in school \u2013 manage feelings of complicity or responsibility for the Holocaust. Vallee, who traveled to Germany earlier this year with the third group of UConn students participating in the exchange program, conducted interviews with German students and their parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cA common theme in the responses is shock, fear, shared guilt, and sadness that so many lost their lives,\u201d said Vallee, as she presented her findings. Many younger Germans who grew up after Germany\u2019s reunification, have difficulty discussing the Holocaust with their parents: \u201cThese aren\u2019t pleasant stories,\u201d one person told her.<\/p>\n
A majority of the Germans she interviewed emphasized their ethical commitment to righting the injustice of the Holocaust. In the words of one interviewee, \u201cWe are all responsible as people to make sure it does not happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Understanding the social context<\/strong><\/p>\nThe exchange program was developed by Werkmeister-Rozas following a three-month teaching sabbatical at Hochschule (University) Merseburg, where she met her collaborator, Johannes Herwig-Lempp, a professor of systemic social work, who was seeking ways to enhance his students\u2019 international experience.<\/p>\n
Herwig-Lempp said that despite the Nazi legacy of racism and prejudice, Germany today has a \u201cmore generous social safety net than the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that many German social workers now work with immigrants from various foreign countries, and that in order to treat them with dignity and respect, it is necessary to understand their identity, as well as society\u2019s attitude towards them. \u201cBringing my students abroad,\u201d he said, \u201chelps them develop a foreigner\u2019s perspective and insight into concepts of power, privilege, and prejudice in Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n
Werkmeister-Rozas said that in order to work effectively with clients, social workers must understand the social context. Investigating the Holocaust and its effect on people is a meaningful way to examine the past, present, and future social and cultural dynamic in Germany.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we visit Germany, it\u2019s not as simple as the Nazis are bad and the Jews are victims,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is much more complex. We examine factors that impacted a person\u2019s response to the Holocaust \u2013 not to say what they did was right \u2013 but to understand the situation that led to their decision, and that someone else in that situation might have made a similar decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really about all of us living life from the positions we find ourselves in and learning about the human condition,\u201d she said, \u201cin the end, human behavior and how we can change it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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