Leeds students mark 80th anniversary of the end of WWII in Dortmund

Getting to know each other in Westpark: Dortmund is one of the greenest cities in Germany

Every year, during May, Leeds's partner city Dortmund holds a week celebrating peace and friendship in Europe, to which young people from its partner cities across Europe are invited.

This year, marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War was especially significant. Leeds was represented by two German language students from the University of Leeds - John Mulford and Leo Barker, as well as Luisa Billepp, German Studies lecturer.

John has written for us about their experiences during the week.

Hallo Leute!

From May 3rd-10th, my course mate Leo, our DAAD German language lecturer Luisa, and I (DAAD is the German Academic Exchange Service), took part in a week of activities in Dortmund to honour 80 years since the end of the Second World War.

Entitled "Echoes of Freedom", this project from the Jugendring Dortmund (their 'youth circle’) and the Youth welfare Office of the City of Dortmund, brought together dozens of young people from Leeds, Dortmund, Zwickau (former East Germany), Netanya (Israel), Novi Sad (Serbia), Zhtomyr (Ukraine) and Amiens (France). 

The week began with each delegation introducing their city to a selection of local dignitaries, including deputy mayor Barbara Brunsing. As well as finding out about other cities, this provided a chance for us to consider what made Leeds special (beyond the Otley Run!). 

Leo and I presenting on the highlights of Leeds 

We then took a group bus tour of Dortmund, seamlessly delivered in 3 languages. A highlight was the chance to visit a disused steel works and blast furnace. Now converted into a visitor attraction, this site of industrial grandeur serves as a monument to the hard work that drove the prosperity of the Ruhr Region, just as those that worked in the mills, factories and foundries of Leeds built our city. 

Leo and I walking along a former gas pipeline towards the Phoenix blast furnace, 64m above ground 

In the following days, we took part in a number of thought-provoking workshops. We toured the numerous ‘sister city squares’ of Dortmund, including the centrally located ‘Platz von Leeds’. It was inspiring to see city partnership integrated in this way into daily life. 

We then had a day of activities devoted to the Second World War, with a focus on The Holocaust and the City of Dortmund’s attempts to memorialise its role in this tear in the fabric of humanity. It was an insight into the worst of Germany’s history and the best of its present, ie. Its globally unique efforts to commemorate its history, however awful. One initiative which stood out to us were the Stolpersteine (‘stumbling stones’), 10cm2 brass plates inscribed with the names of victims of Nazi terror and laid in the last place that each victim chose freely to reside, work or study. There are 344 in Dortmund. 

A ‘Stolperstein’ in Dortmund: “Here lived Dr. Hugo Cohen. Born 1876. Persecuted since 1936 under Paragraph 175 (the anti-gay Nazi legislation). 1938: Deported to Sachsenhausen. 1942: Sent to Riga. March 1942: Murdered in the SS ‘Dünamünde Action’, Riga”

As well as looking to the past, we had a number of workshops looking towards the future. We were encouraged to think about what change we would want to deliver in our cities and discussed improvements to women’s safety at night, public transport and memory culture. Particularly special was the opportunity to spend a day at Signal Iduna Park, Borussia Dortmund’s football stadium, the largest in Germany. Inspired by a similar initiative at Leeds United from the 2000s, the club has opened an Education Centre inside the stadium. The volunteers from this centre led workshops on anti-discrimination, hand-eye coordination training and there was even a chance to use graffiti to make canvases honouring city partnership. 

R-L: Leo, Luisa, myself and Jasmina (a member of the Dortmund delegation) with our graffiti artwork. 

In summary, this week was a unique opportunity: to form friendships with young people from across the world, to reflect on the end of the Second World War and to consider how we can maintain city partnerships as living, breathing initiatives into the future. Whether playing team games in Dortmund stadium, going clubbing with new friends or contemplating the horrors of the Holocaust, a universal truth shone through this week, perhaps best expressed by murdered West Yorkshire MP Jo Cox: “we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us”.

John Mulford (German student at the University of Leeds)