School years 2021/2022, 2022/23 and 2023/24

Under the theme »Doors into the World«, an archival educational project has taken place in the school year 2021/2022 in the form of an extra-curricular activity for pupils of all ages. The names of the classrooms at the Evangelische Zinzendorfschulen Herrnhut form the starting point. They bear the names of places around the world where congregations of the Moravian Church were located or are still located today. Starting from the placenames in the school, the pupils go on a search for traces from the past and the present outside of school in Herrnhut and, in particular, in the Unity Archives. The pupils find out exactly where the places are on the world map. What can we learn about the people who lived in these places? What can we find out about events connected with these places? How did it come about that Moravians went out in the world set up congregations in some of the world's remote places? And do the places still exist, or is there still a Moravian community or school there today that can be contacted?

The Unity Archives with its diverse holdings offers a great deal of accessible information that can lead us to the answers to these questions. History and the present are thus linked together. During the hands-on workshops, basic techniques of searching for and evaluating information are taught. The advantages and disadvantages of different media and their physical compositions are discussed with reference to their possibilities of interpretation and the dangers posed by environmental influences. In this way, the question of what an archive actually is and what it is needed for or what it has to offer is easily answered. We are happy if we can awaken pupils interest in history and historical stories in general, but also, in particular, for Herrnhut and the Moravian Church - and not only in the 300th anniversary year of Herrnhut.

Specifically, five places »names of classrooms« were chosen for this school year: Sarepta / Russia (today a district of Volgograd) - Sumbawanga / Tanzania - Rajpur, Tibet - Bethlehem, Pa. / USA - Saint John / Virgin Islands. Information is gathered together and the material is collected in archive boxes. In the school year 2022/23, the project was continued in alternating weeks with the Ethnological Museum in Herrnhut (Völkerkundemuseum) and in 2023/24 in alternating weeks with a sound workshop project by the Hillersche Villa in Zittau.