Sofija Umiljenovic | Local on-site Group, Berlin/Germany
Sofija Umiljenovic is in her final student year at the Friedrich-Spee Comprehensive School in Paderborn/Germany; the school puts a special emphasis on projects dealing with topics of history and remembrance.
A formative experience which triggered Sofija’s interest in these topics was her student travel to Auschwitz:
“After the travel, I recorded the impressions in my notebook which has become a general habit of mine to reflect about experiences. One outcome of these poetic contemplations was my text « Es ist nur eine Dusche » (“It’s just a shower”) which, in a first step, I presented in front of several classes of my school.”
Sofija was then invited to present this text at the city museum of Paderborn, at the church congress in Dortmund, at a poetry slam competition and on occasion of a placing of the so-called “Stolpersteine” in Bielefeld. In the following, she has continued to work on the topics of history & memory in diverse other projects:
In 2019/20, Sofija participated in the Erasmus-Project of her school especially devoted to exploring phenomena related to “cultures of remembrance”. Together with their project partners from Ireland, Estonia and Spain, their international youth group explored the following guiding question: How may we, by cultivating national and regional cultures of remembrance, sensitize a broader public for the experiences of the past and the fragility of peace in today’s world, especially in view of the new rise of extreme nationalist movements in many European countries?
Creative writing has become a continuous method for Sofija to reflect upon history: In 2020, she won with her texts the 2nd prize of the “Young Woman in Public Affairs Award 2020” organized by the Zonta Club Paderborn. As part of her school’s project course on remembrance Sofija then contributed, in 2021, the poem « Das Schloss » (“The Castle”) for the online-exhibition of the Wewelsburg district Museum:
Online Source: CLICK
Another passion of Sofija is acting. During the last years she has taken place in several youth theatre productions of the Theater Paderborn („Angstmän“, „Die wilden Hühner“, „Nachtgeknister“, „Kreuzweg“, „All Adventurous Women Do“).
Her motivation to take part in the Berlin LIVING MEMORIAL seminar:
“I am fascinated to further explore how historical topics can be treated with an artistic approach. I also wish to learn more about the process and concepts of how historical sites are developed into sites of remembrance”.