Místa v srdci / Hertzensorte

This bilingual (German-Czech) book follows up on an exhibition project bearing the same name. It is intended as a supplementary teaching text for history and social science classes for children between the ages of 13 and 17 years. The authors, Markus and Lucie Mantel, are currently working on completing the methodological materials for teachers for working with the book in the classroom.
The book consists of texts based on the memories of Germans and German speaking Czechs who had to leave Czechoslovakia in 1945, following Germany’s defeat in WWII. Mantel tries to explain, using their stories, his own observations of contemporary Sudetenland and with the support of historical facts, how Czechs and Germans used to live side by side and together for many generations.
The book is designed in red and blue colours – red for everything that is “German” and blue for everything that is “Czech”. Czech is therefore printed in blue, German in red, and illustrations are always combinations of both colours. The Czech and German texts are always alternating(prechazijici) in the book – they differ only in colour, just like in the past in Czechoslovakia Czechs used to be naturally mixed in with Germans differing only in the language used.
The illustrations alternate with documentary photographs, just like reality blends in with imagination.
The book is bound like a notepad with top spiral binding, which gives it informal character. The book also contains an elastic strap that holds a red and blue pencil as a symbolic continuation of the Czech-German theme, which the future generation, unencumbered by past events, has in its hands. At the same time it can be used for writing.