In cooperation with the Education Office of the Aachen City Region, AmerikaHaus NRW e.V. offers an annual interactive excursion for school groups that focuses on key topics in German-American history, remembrance culture, and transatlantic relations.

 

A visit to the Henri-Chapelle American Military Cemetery in Belgium is an integral part of the program. This historic site offers an impressive insight into the effects of World War II from an American perspective.

 

The excursion is complemented by a second program item. In the past, this led to the former Nazi Ordensburg Vogelsang IP – a place that, as a “perpetrator site,” makes the ideological legacy of National Socialism visible.

 

In 2025, we will visit a forest cemetery in Aachen in cooperation with the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. (German War Graves Commission) in order to provide a comparative experience of different forms of remembrance. An in-depth workshop after the excursion will accompany this. In the workshop, American cultural mediator and founder of the Unerasure Project, Terry Mandel, will work with the students on questions of memory, responsibility, and cultural heritage. The project is committed to making repressed historical experiences visible worldwide and promotes intergenerational dialogue through artistic and biographical approaches.

This combined learning experience aims not only to convey historical facts, but also to strengthen intercultural sensitivity, social awareness, and democratic values.

 

The excursion is aimed particularly at secondary school students and is ideal for project days or as a supplement to classroom teaching.