City of Bocholt and St. Georg Grammar School seal cooperation on remembrance culture
Bocholt - The city of Bocholt and St. Georg Grammar School have signed an official cooperation agreement to promote the local culture of remembrance. On the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism, representatives of both institutions sealed the future co-operation in the field of historical education. The agreement centres on the pupils' active commitment to commemorating their former Jewish fellow citizens.
The agreement was signed on 27 January 2026 by Bocholt's First City Councillor Björn Volmering, Headmistress Hilke Smidt, Oliver Brenn as Head of Culture and Archives and history teacher Dominique Ischinsky. This step consolidates work that has already been carried out for years and transforms it into a permanent educational partnership.
In the past, St George's Grammar School was already the main initiator of the first Stumbling Stones to be laid in Bocholt after a history course had dealt intensively with the fates of Jewish classmates such as Hermann Cohen, who graduated from high school.
© Stadt Bocholt
Pupils from St George's Grammar School clean the stumbling stones of Max and Paul Hochheimer on Weberstraße together.
The agreement that has now been concluded stipulates that the school agrees to clean the stumbling blocks in Bocholt on the occasion of the annual day of remembrance. This maintenance ensures that the memorials laid in the ground and the names of the victims of National Socialism remain visible to passers-by in the cityscape.
"By cleaning the names of the victims, we bring them back from oblivion into our consciousness and symbolically bow to their fate", says Bocholt's First City Councillor Björn Volmering. The city of Bocholt supports this commitment financially. The administration is also coordinating thematically appropriate guided tours on National Socialism in Bocholt in order to deepen the knowledge of the pupils involved.
Alongside the Jewish cemetery and the memorial site of the former synagogue, the Stumbling Stones by artist Gunter Demnig are the central places of remembrance in public spaces.
After the Mariengymnasium, the St.-Georg-Gymnasium is the second school in Bocholt to enter into such an official educational partnership with the city in the field of remembrance culture. The co-operation partners have also agreed to work closely together on further projects in the future to reappraise the city's history. The city of Bocholt emphasises the importance of this commitment by teachers and pupils as an important contribution to actively remembering the atrocities of the Nazi dictatorship locally.
An overview of the Stolpersteine in NRW can be found on the WDR website at https://stolpersteine.wdr.de
