22. October 2026

Decisions under Pressure: Holocaust remembrance, antisemitism, antigypsyism and civil courage

Before the Second World War, around 10,000 Jews lived in Sarajevo. Under the Ustaša regime, a large part of the Jewish population of Bosnia and Herzegovina was deported and murdered, and Roma were subject to systematic persecution and extermination. In France, state institutions of the Vichy regime took part in the persecution of Jews, while Roma and people persecuted as “nomads” were interned. Antisemitism and antigypsyism have not disappeared. Antisemitic incidents are rising in several European countries, Roma continue to face discrimination and social exclusion in many forms, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina structural disadvantages for Jewish, Roma and other minority communities persist to this day.

At the same time, historical knowledge alone does not sustain democratic values ​​or social participation. Young people need spaces where they can connect historical experience with present-day challenges, and where responsibility, solidarity and civil courage become questions about their own actions rather than abstract ideals. Transnational formats make this possible in a particular way: they bring different cultures of remembrance into dialogue and open up shared European perspectives on confronting exclusion and discrimination.
How do people behave when others are excluded? What room for action did individuals have then, and what room do we have now? How can remembrance education speak to young people who are confronted with anti-Semitism and anti-Roma racism in their own schools, feeds and neighborhoods?

We are looking for an educator who wants to answer these questions in practice. If you want to design learning spaces where young people examine historical persecution, recognize its continuities in the present, and work out what civil courage can mean for them, this call is for you.

Apply to become a 2026 Fellow and help shape how the next generation learns from this history.

Funded by the German Foreign Office, the Schwarzkopf Foundation awards one fellowship for October-December 2026 as part of the educational network Understanding Europe.

The call is open until October  25th, 2026 (23:59 CET).