GULAG XR

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What is Gulag XR?

A collection of ready-made lesson materials based on unique historical and archaeological research.

Gulag XR brings modern technologies such as virtual and augmented reality to the teaching of modern history.

European Memory of the Gulag – eXtended Reality as an Educational Tool – Gulag XR for short.

Who for?

For students from 9th grade upwards. Gulag XR can be used free of charge by primary and secondary schools in the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland and Slovakia.

Methodologies, teaching aids and tips will be posted on this website on an ongoing basis.

The main topic?

Soviet repression and its common European dimension.

We will give pupils an exploratory insight into Soviet repression in the memories of witnesses from Central and Eastern Europe.

Thanks to virtual and augmented reality, pupils can “taste” the atmosphere of the Gulag. The aim of such an experience is to help pupils develop attitudes towards democratic values.

In addition to knowledge, pupils will also improve their research skills. The project includes a research diary in the form of a comic book.

Who is behind the project?

Gulag XR is being developed under the leadership of the Czech association Gulag.cz in cooperation with the educational company Scio, the German Memorial, the Polish Collegium of Eastern Europe and the Slovak Post Bellum. The technological solution of the project (virtual and augmented reality) is based on the results of the expeditions and field research of the Gulag.cz association, which has been working with virtual reality since 2018. We are also developing a Russian version of the tool with the Russian association Memorial, the winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize, and we are working with them on the project content. The project is funded under the European Erasmus Plus programme.

Why?

Thousands of Czechs, Germans, Poles, Slovaks and other Europeans were among the victims of Soviet state terror (we are focusing on the totalitarian period of Stalin's rule from the 1930s to the 1950s). To date, this topic is not perceived as part of common European history and, in addition, the approach to it varies significantly from country to country. While in Poland they speak openly about the hundreds of thousands of victims of Soviet atrocities, in Germany memories of Soviet crimes remain on the fringes of public discourse and the curriculum (even though hundreds of thousands of innocent Germans were victims of the Soviet regime). In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, on the other hand, the subject is unknown to the general public – most textbooks are silent about the Czech and Slovak victims of Soviet repression.

We analysed the situation in each country by studying curriculum documents, available textbooks and interviews with teachers.