History of School Education Collection included into UNESCO world documentary heritage
For over 30 years now, the UNESCO “Memory of the World” project has been collecting documents from significant moments in human history and making them available to the public. These include the archives from the Warsaw ghetto, the Göttingen Gutenberg Bible and x-ray images from Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen.
The History of School Education Collection, run jointly by FAU and the City of Nuremberg, is one of 17 collections of drawings, paintings and writing from children and young people to have now been included in the UNESCO world documentary heritage. They act as a cultural memory documenting key experiences from wartime and their consequences.
Children’s drawings considered documentary heritage
More than 4,500 works from FAU’s History of School Education Collection have recently been included in the UNESCO world documentary heritage. These are drawings from school children and adolescents who were taught by Wilhelm Daiber at the elementary school Volksschule Stein between 1924 and 1929.
Daiber was keen to give his pupils the opportunity to explore their own style without time constraints. The reformist teacher invested in expensive paints and high-quality paper. Thanks to the care he took to collect, label and sort all the drawings, there can be no doubt as to the time the drawings were made and the age and gender of the children, even 100 years later.
This is a crucial aspect which allows us to gain valuable insights today. How was progressive education put into practice at the Volksschule in the 1920s? How did children and adolescents perceive their daily life just a few years after the end of the First World War? How did they use the opportunity to express themselves through art?
Creativity and independence in Daiber’s classes
Following a progressive approach to teaching (known as Reformpädagogik), Daiber sought to encourage independence in his classes and support his pupils’ creativity. The result: pictures with very different motives, ranging from pictures of submarines or animals, to scenes from fairytales and the Bible. Some pictures show Easter bunnies carrying flags from the German Empire, others give a glimpse into pupils’ home lives, with some rooms appearing rather bare and suggesting a poorer background, while others have clocks on the wall, suggesting a certain affluence.
These works found their way to FAU in the early 1980’s, when the Nuremberg Toy Museum gifted them to Prof. Dr. Max Liedtke from the Chair of Education I at FAU. At that time, Liedtke was in the process of establishing the History of School Education Collection.
Works give valuable cultural insights
On its website, UNESCO classifies these works and those from the other 16 collections as “documentary heritage” that can provide valuable information for following generations. This is particularly poignant when you consider that the children in Daiber’s classes experienced another war only a few years later. It is possible that these drawings were the only chance they had to make a mark in history.
The application process for the 17 collections began in 2018. The Musée national de l’Éducation in Rouen in France submitted the application on behalf of FAU. The “International Research and Archives Network for Historical Children’s and Youth Drawings (IRAND)” provided organizational support.
During a press conference introducing the FAU collection, FAU President Prof. Dr. Joachim Hornegger praised the dedication and valuable work of the School Museum, in particular of museum director Dr. Mathias Rösch and Udo Andraschke, who is in charge of Museums and Collections at FAU: “Innovation, diversity and passion are the core values at our FAU, and I find it hard to think of something that embodies these principles better than our collections and those who care for them. Presenting these valuable objects in innovative ways, utilizing them for research and teaching, appreciating their diversity, and passionately curating and expanding the collections all depend on the dedicated efforts of individuals like Dr. Mathias Rösch and Udo Andraschke. The decision to include our History of School Education Collection in the UNESCO world documentary heritage is not only a feather in our cap for FAU, it also reveals what a valuable treasure we have been honored to keep here over the past decades.”
Nuremberg’s mayor Marcus König underlined the importance of this honor for the city of Nuremberg: “Acceptance into the UNESCO world documentary heritage is an outstanding international honor and confirms the unusual cultural and historical significance of this collection – for Nuremberg, for Germany, and beyond. Following on from the Behaim Globe and the Golden Bull, this opens a new chapter in the history of our city and UNESCO. I would particularly like to thank the School Museum for its extraordinary commitment over the decades and the German UNESCO Committee for trusting in us. This is not only an honor for us, it is also an obligation to keep our cultural heritage alive and safeguard it for future generations:”
Cornelia Trinkl, educational advisor and chair of the Förderverein des Schulmuseums (friends’ association of the School Museum), underlined the significance of the Collection: “Children’s drawings from the period after the end of the First World War are a moving first-hand revelation of how young people experience history, giving a valuable impulse for historical learning, empathy and responsibility. The School Museum Nuremberg and FAU have made these moving testimonies visible and accessible to the general public. Being honored by UNESCO for the third time underlines just how closely cultural heritage and education are linked in Nuremberg.
“Being included into the UNESCO documentary heritage is an extraordinary honor that is only granted to a few collections across the globe. It is really very special for such a small collection as the History of School Education in Nuremberg to be given this honor,” explains Dr. Mathias Rösch. “Being accepted by UNESCO demonstrates three main aspects: it indicates the high value of school education collections as such, and underlines the value of the collections at FAU in general, with their unique and valuable items. Thirdly, it increases appreciation of children’s drawings as a historical source, as aesthetic works and as the expression of children’s thoughts, feelings and experiences.”
Visit FAU’s History of School Education Collection
The items in the collection’s archive are available for academic research at Regensburger Straße 160 in Nuremberg. An exhibition of the drawings is planned for fall 2025.
Further information
Dr. Mathias Rösch
School Museum Nuremberg
mathias.roesch@fau.de