European Sites of ConscienceBuilding a Shared Memory

European Sites of ConscienceBuilding a Shared Memory

The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience and the European Sites of Conscience Network are pleased to announce the launch of the digital exhibit: Building a Shared Memory.

The exhibit is the result of the collaboration of 10 European Sites of Conscience from seven countries. Conceptualized as a joint and ongoing exhibit that expands and evolves with the European Network, Building a Shared Memory shows how European Sites of Conscience work to promote tolerance in Europe by preserving memory and addressing shared social challenges.

Exhibit Introduction

The PAST, present for the future

On 8th August 1956, 262 coal miners of 12 different nationalities lost their lives in an accident at “Le Bois du Cazier.” The tragedy led to massive worker right’s reforms in Belgium. In the old colliery, this tragedy is put back into its historical place for visitors today.

Le Bois du Cazier: in the past, a place of a Tragedy. Today, a UNESCO’s world heritage site. © Detraux/Paquay/Deru/Paquet/Cleda.

The past, PRESENT for the future

Le Bois du Cazier builds off this legacy of transforming history into positive social change. Visitors engage with lessons from the tragedy at Le Bois du Cazier to broach contemporary issues like worker safety, labor regulations, and immigrant rights.

As part of Navigating Difference, a joint project of Le Bois du Cazier and the Coalition, students consider the questions “Is immigration good for my country? My community? Me?” and compare their answers with others from Italy and America.© Le Bois du Cazier.

The past, present for the FUTURE

In working to develop an engaged and active citizenry, “Le Bois du Cazier” encourages its visitors to reflect on their own histories and the personal experiences of others in forming social positions and values.

Read more about Le Bois du Cazier.

Young Italians meet with former miners at le Bois du Cazier to learn about workers’ and immigrants’ experiences. Le Bois du Cazier is a place where knowledge transmission informs contemporary values. © Axel Mathieu.

Silenced Memory

For nearly 30 years, Catalonian civil society demanded the recovery of silenced memories from 1931-1980: Spain’s Second Republic, the Spanish Civil War, Franco’s dictatorship, and the struggle to restore democracy.

10,000 Spanish Republicans who fled to France after the Civil War ended up in Nazi concentration camps like Mathausen; nearly half died before the camps were liberated in 1945. © Museu d’Història de Catalunya, Amical de Mauthausen collection.

Remember and Honor

The Memorial Democràtic was created in 2007 in response to this “need to remember.” The memorial gathers and disseminates recent history, documents the testimonies of local residents, organizes public reparation and recognition ceremonies, and pays tribute to those who struggled for freedom, democracy, and autonomy in Catalonia.

Memorial Democràtic preserves the Republican airfield used during the Spanish Civil War in Alfès to remind visitors today of the sacrifices made for democracy. © Memorial Democràtic.

The Value of Democracy

Now at a time when democratic representation is alive in public debate, our commitment is to remember and share the origins of the current democratic system in Catalonia: the values of the Second Republic and the struggles of the anti-Francoism movement.

Read more about Memorial Democràtic. Thousands in Barcelona attended demonstrations for the Statute of Autonomy in 1977. What

actions can we take today to uphold the democractic values they fought for? © Robert Ramos.

Through documentation of personal histories and public advocacy, Fund B92 is refocusing public attention to the sensitive but important moments in our history as a starting point for further education, research, and remembrance.

Former concentration camp prisoner and Holocaust survivor Pavle Minh shares his memories in a documentary produced by Fund B92 and B92 Media Company. © Staro Sajmiste – History of a Camp, 2009, Fond B92.

Memories that Beg to be Forgotten

Fund B92’s educational program offers youth today a sensory experience of the past in a safe space of discussion and discovery that goes beyond history books and into real people’s lives.

In a former Jewish community center, primary school pupils participate in a role-play workshop on WWII, experiencing history through touch, taste, sight, and sound. © Alexandra Collin, Fond B92.

Hands-on History

Serbia’s youth engage with street art to express changing attitudes: “In 2009 I want… Ratko behind bars.” For years considered by many as a national hero, Serbian General Ratko Mladic is now on trial for war crimes during the 1990s Balkan Wars. © Fond B92.

Understanding the context that generated certain historical developments promotes personal and collective responsibility in present-day political and cultural contexts and helps to engage visitors in thinking through what it means to build a more coherent society today.

Read more about The B92 Fund.

Change in the Present

Why were Peaceful Protests met with Violence?

The past must be dealt with directly and honestly if we are to properly resolve the issues arising from it. There is no benefit in avoiding controversy, no matter how painful it may be.

Michael McDaid enters, from left, just seconds before he was shot dead by British soldiers on Bloody Sunday, when they opened fire on a peaceful demonstration. © The Museum of Free Derry.

Can ‘Ordinary’ People Change Things?

Founded by survivors, victims’ families, and campaigners, the Museum of Free Derry tells the unashamedly subjective story of how a community united to demand civil rights. It shows how people can stand against and defeat oppressive power.

The families of those killed on Bloody Sunday, an ‘ordinary’ group of people, campaigned for years to force the British government to admit the truth about that day. © The Museum of Free Derry.

It Can Be Done.

After 39 years, the Bloody Sunday campaign for truth and justice was finally vindicated. At the Museum of Free Derry, we tell their story, and others like it, to inspire visitors to consider their own histories and take action against oppression.

Read more about the Museum of Free Derry.

A community united and demanded equality and got it; a group of families united and demanded truth and got it. © The Museum of Free Derry.

Rainbow over the once dark skies of Gernika

This threatening sky, from which bombs once fell, brought the wonderful rainbow that provides protection to the memory of this city. © Hibai Agorria and CDBG.

Gernika, one of the first cities bombed during the Spanish Civil War in 1937, has risen from its ashes. Collecting and sharing with the community memories of what happened here is the mission of the Gernika Peace Museum Foundation.

Traces of Life

Survivors and victims of unfair and unnecessary suffering leave their mark on life as a legacy for new generations. Working to keep their memory alive requires a delicate balance between looking to the past and building for the future, which we must maintain.

The traces of life that remain after tragedy are vital for a better understanding of what happened and not to forget. © Vinçent West and Hibai Agorria.

Culture of Peace

Rather than dwell in bitterness, working to develop new cultures of peace for future generations is the path taken by the city of Gernika. Awarded with the UNESCO City of Peace Prize, the Gernika Peace Museum is one player in the proactive strategy for reconciliation and rebuilding.

Read more about Gernika Peace Museum.

Children of Gernika in a moment of peace and quiet on the sculpture by Eduardo Chillida Gure Aitaren Etxea – House of our Grandfather. © Hibai Agorria.

History - a key to understanding the Present

The entire city of Krakow is a place of memory: after occupation by the Nazis from 1939 – 1945, the city fell under the control of a totalitarian Communist government. Fortunately, much of the city's historical and architectural legacy was preserved, illustrating more than a century of Krakow’s history.

On November 18, 1939, the chief of the Krakow District issued a sudden and divisive directive that all Jews over twelve years were to wear white bands with the Star of David on their right arm. © History Museum of the City of Krakow.

Memory Trail – Our Way to Remember

A Gestapo prison. A Polish pharmacy in the ghetto. The famed Oscar Schindler's factory. Through these three sites we try to help our community remember, reflect, and learn more about the past and its impact on our society today. Visitors discover our history using exhibits, artworks, personal stories, and the city itself.

Students in the Gestapo Prison at the Pomorska Street Museum prepare for a comprehensive remembrance tour connecting all three sites shaped by wartime Krakow. © History Museum of the City of Krakow.

Combating Indifference

Only by taking the time to know, understand, feel, and remember the past can we be more responsive in the present and take action for the future. We must combat indifference, react to contemporary circumstances, and be aware.

Read more about the History Museum of the City of Krakow.

Participants cross the finish line of the Remembrance Run - an activity arranged by the museum to commemorate victims of war- in the former ghetto square. © History Museum of the City of Krakow.

From our Past…

Not so long ago, Italian emigrants decided to leave all behind in search of a better future, despite the risks of the unknown and the unsure. Mu.MA endeavors to present and discuss this recent and difficult past.

In the early 20th century, many people left Genoa by ship to Brazil, Argentina, America, and other destinations. © Mu.MA.

The key visual of Memoria e Migrazioni asks, “What – if anything - makes migrants to Italy today different from those who left Italy 100 years ago?” ©Mu.MA.

In ‘Memoria e Migrazioni’ we juxtapose the past with our present. How is migration today different from – or similar to – the experience of the past? Our museum is a place where visitors can consider this question and challenge their own attitudes.

Through our Present...

At the end of MeM, foreign-born students are invited to share their stories with friends and classmates to help them relate to immigration on a personal level. © Mu.MA.

At Mu.MA, we feel it is our responsibility as a museum to promote integration and to encourage Italians to see immigration as more than a challenge, but as an opportunity for our future.

Read more about Mu.MA.

...We build our Future.

The Red Star Line Site: Where History was Written

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The Red Star Line Museum is located in the third class passenger original departure warehouses of the Red Star Line shipping company. From 1873 to 1934, the shipping company transported nearly two million European emigrants to the United States and Canada.

Emigrants departing from the Red Star Line warehouses, ca. 1905. © Collection Red Star Line Museum, 2013.

Focus on Personal Stories and Participation of the Public

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With an exhibition that focuses on emigrant stories, frames them as timeless, fundamentally human, and still relevant today…

Emigrants boarding a Red Star Line ship, ca. 1905. © Collection Janssens.

Making History Relevant Today

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…enable us to explore the meaning of the Red Star Line site and its history today. We draw a diverse public with different attitudes and invite them to reflect and talk on the topic of migration past and present.

Read more about the Red Star Line Museum.

Guided tour in the Red Star Line Museum. © Collection Red Star Line Museum, 2013.

The Drowned… and the Saved

Remembering the past begins with remembering the victims. The personal stories of victims and survivors – along with our own moral condemnation of their fate—help us relate to the past and motivate us to learn from their experiences.

Luigi and Maria Paselli, 10-year old twins killed in the Monte Sole military massacre of 1944. Primo Levi calls them “the drowned”. © Scuola di Pace Monte Sole.

Their sister Cornelia Paselli survived. Levi calls her “the saved.” © Scuola di Pace Monte Sole.

Why did Ordinary Men willingly carry out such Violence?

At Monte Sole, we examine not only the stories of victims, but also those of perpetrators. To do so, allows us to try and rebuild the context that was the perpetrators' framework, including the multiple range of factors that led to those people acting that violence. This means to question ourselves.

(Mid-left) Walter Reder, the Nazi chief of the 1944 operation in Monte Sole, “The Perpetrator”, during the trial for war crimes. © Scuola di Pace Monte Sole.

“All that evil knows about itself, we will discover it easily…

in ourselves.”

By examining all aspects of the past, and placing ourselves in all roles, we can interrogate our own possibilities to express violence, with words, with actions, with silences. Because the past is present.

Read more about Monte Sole.

Who do you see in this image? Do we all have the potential to be victims? Perpetrators? Bystanders? © Scuola di Pace Monte Sole.

The Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina (YHIR BH) works to remember the Srebrenica genocide that took place during the Bosnian War in the 1990s. More than 8,000 male Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) were killed in Srebrenica. Croats and Bosniaks were also imprisoned in concentration camps built by the authorities of the Republika Srpska (RS). One of these camps was located in Prijedor, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Re-connecting the Past and Present

Anthropologist Ewa Klonowska during the exhumation, holding the hand of one of the victims from the mass grave. © YIHR BH, August 2002, Kamneica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Tarik Samarah. 

Since 2010, YIHR BH has developed educational tools and organized youth camps in the area around Prijedor. We use projects such as "Srebrenica - mapping genocide” to educate younger generations about the war and the genocide, in an effort to contribute to the process of reconciliation in the country.

Learning from the Past to Ensure a Stable Future

The “Srebrenica – mapping genocide” project. © YIHR BH.

Through this work, YIHR BH is commited to raising awareness about the crimes committed during the Bosnian War, and to create the necessary resources for ongoing learning, research and a permanent memorial.

Read more about the Youth Initiative for Human Rights.

Education of Post-War Generations for a Peaceful Future

Young people gathered in one of our camps in Kozarac. ©YIHR BH.