Dorothea-Schlegel-Platz is a public square that is located in Berlin near the original location of where the French school Französisches Gymnasium was. The square is bounded by the Friedrichstraße station, as the design of the square is monotonous due to the concrete surfaces. The statue that was mentioned that is located at Friedrichstraße, is also within the public square as well given how the two are bounded together. The school, Französisches Gymnasium, was moved to a different location in 1972. However, despite the change in location, the school does still exist and teaches with both French and German languages.[1] As for the Dorothea-Schlegel-Platz square, there is a Christmas market held there every year called the Weihnachtsmarkt-friedrichstrasse, which takes place in the public square.[2] The event contains a curling rink in the square, Alpine Hut for concerts and venues around Christmas traditions, and a bar that involves signature German and French drinks. Besides the Christmas market, the square holds other minor public events around Oktoberfest and minor summer events, but besides those it had simply become a regular public square for people to walk through.[3] Despite being a regular public square, the memorial is almost centralized in the square for people to be reminded through the Friedrichstraße station about what happened when Jewish children were moved out of the country in the Second World War.

This destination is the second stop on the Cruel Childhood: the Experiences of Youth Minorities in Nazi Berlin Walking Tour.

While Dorothea-Schlegel-Platz is just a typical public square now, as mentioned before it was close to the original location of Französisches Gymnasium, a French school located in central Berlin. The school was primarily one focused on both French and German languages and it had been that way for over hundreds of years. Germany had always been interested in joining the two countries together in cultures, and to further extent education, most prominently in the Second World War.[4] However, as the country fell under the Nazi regime and all of Germany's occupied states followed, the educational system did too. Conformity was necessary in the schools and amongst teachers to take on these common ideas of coordination and conformity.[5] While the school had been one of French and German, all Jewish students at the time, no matter where they were from, were deprived of their education. This was the case for Curt Sachs, who was interested in taking music when he was "deprived of all his academic positions in 1933."[6] While the article does not state what grade he was in, it mentions that this was an event that occurred while he was attending Französisches Gymnasium. The education system took on a role of coordination and conformation as opposed to one of actual teaching significance, which had lasting consequences on all of the students that attended school, not even necessarily Jewish. Education in this idea of coordination revolved around the Nazi regime using the system as its tool. Essentially what that meant was the Nazi regime could use the students that went to school to implement their racial policies and ideologies for the future of Germany under Nazism.[7] With these ideologies behind teachers and controlling the education system, students living in Germany and specifically Jewish students, had their education tampered with and destroyed for generations to come. The goal of the Französisches Gymnasium on this tour is to represent not only French-German relations before, during, and after the war, but also to express the way children had their education system controlled on a basis of racial policies and ideologies under the Nazi regime.

Carrier, Peter. 2006. "The Second World War in the Memory Cultures of France and Germany." National Identities 8 (4): 349-366.

Französisches Gymnasium 1689. Accessed March 28, 2019. https://www.fg-berlin.eu/?lang=fr

German History in Documents and Images, "Guidelines for Teaching History", 1938.

Weihnachtstmarkt; Friedrichstrasse. Accessed March 28, 2019.http://weihnachtsmarktfriedrichstrasse.com/

[1] Französisches Gymnasium 1689, https://www.fg-berlin.eu/?lang=fr

[2]Weihnachtstmarkt; Friedrichstrasse, http://weihnachtsmarkt-friedrichstrasse.com/

[3] Oktoberfesthütte auf dem; Dorothea-Schlegel-Platz https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/211598882475996171/?autologin=true

[4] Peter Carrier, "The Second World War in the Memory Cultures of France and Germany" 350.

[5] German History in Documents and Images, "Guidelines for Teaching History", 1938.

[6] Howard Mayer Brown, "Sachs, Curt."

[7] The Holocaust Explained, "How did the Nazis control education?"