Meeting between students from Reggio Emilia and students of the Kahla Gymnasium, 24 September 2025

A joint remembrance project on Nazi forced labour in Kahla.

As part of an international youth project, initiated and accompanied by the Documentation Center for Nazi Forced Labor in Berlin, young people from Reggio Emilia, Italy, and students from the Kahla Gymnasium met with the history teacher Mr. Mechold as a supervisor to jointly research the history of forced labour during National Socialism and to document this using the example of the regional history of the REIMAHG near Kahla. Since our association has been in contact with the Berlin Documentation Center on Forced Labor for a long time, we were contacted in advance to organize the program here in Kahla, which we were happy to accept.

After the arrival of the young people in Kahla, the group met for lunch together in the rose garden. Janos had prepared the delicious lunch perfectly and so it offered an ideal setting for intercultural dialogues.

The focus of the three-day youth project was the joint examination of the complex topic of forced labour, which forms a special historical reference to it in the region through the REIMAHG factory.

The young people exchanged their experiences on this topic in their countries. Regarding the National Socialist era, they dealt intensively with the fates of forced labourers and drew parallels in this topic, which was cross-border.

A central item on the agenda was a visit to the Kahla City Museum. Association members taught the young people everything they needed to know in English, especially professionally proven facts about the history of REIMAHG. In addition, the exhibition offered insights into the life and suffering of the forced labourers who were deployed in and around Kahla during the Second World War by means of unique objects that speak for themselves. The young people discussed together, above all lively, the significance and significance today of the culture of remembrance and how to deal with this difficult chapter of history.

The encounter between the young people from Reggio Emilia and the students of the Kahla Gymnasium is an important contribution to international understanding and to the active examination of the history of Nazi forced labour. Through the joint experience, development, learning and remembering, a sustainable awareness of the importance of humanity and responsibility in the present and future was created.