European Convention

The conference ” A Need for Conference on Plural Remembrance in Migration Societies” was held in St. Pölten from 1-2 June 2024. The first European convention of the CPPD was realised in cooperation with Tangente St. Pölten – Festival for Contemporary Culture and the Austrian Institute for Jewish History (INJOEST). Muhammet Ali Baş from the CPPD network curated the conference.

Academics, artists and activists from a variety of communities discussed questions of cultural and political remembrance of racist and anti-Semitic violence in panels, workshops and other formats as part of the main theme »Memory Matters«.

On the occasion of the conference on 1 June, the dynamic memory lab on the topic of “Codes of Memory in Sinti*- and Roma* Communities” received a festive opening on the Rathausplatz in St. Pölten together with the architect Jan Bodenstein and the curator Hamze Bytyçi. The exhibition curated by Hamze Bytyçi was updated and expanded by regional perspectives on Roma* and Sinti* as well as Yenish in Austria.

Over 40 people working in remembrance policy and members of the CPPD from 12 European countries came together for a network meeting during the conference in order to discuss the different needs for remembrance on the European level and to determine next steps for the shared work. The network meeting was moderated by Vatan from Wertansich(t).

In his keynote speech, CPPD curator Max Czollek presented theses on remembrance culture that reflected upon the current remembrance policy challenges caused by the instrumentalisation of remembrance over the course of the increasingly strong shift to the right throughout Europe. In the panel discussion “Whose Remembrance is missing and Who Fights to Make it Visible?”, the theatre scholar Darija Davidovic spoke with the poet and journalist Samuel Mago, the educator and activist Ayşe Güleç, and the visual artist Philipp Gufler about paths to a democratic remembrance culture.

Two workshops were also part of the schedule of ancillary programming: the artist Nina Prader led a zine workshop where the focus was placed on the function of zines as remembrance policy and community-building tools in the participatory of zine design. The architect Jan Bodenstein as well as the postcolonial urban researcher Noa K. Ha introduced the participants in a workshop on urban history and remembrance to the significance and necessity of remembrance architectures that are conceived in a plural manner.

The social education worker Eşim Karakuyu, Prof. Dr. Frederek Musall, chair of DialoguePerpectives e.V., the chair of the Kreuzberg Initiative Against Anti-Semitism, Derviş Hızarcı as well as the artist and curator Sheri Avraham also discussed the complex challenges and polarisations in Germany and Austria after 7 October 2023 and the war in the Middle East. The panel was moderated by Max Czollek.

Various events took place as part of »Memory Matters: IMPORT/EXPORT – REMEMBRANCE« in search of post-documentary remembrances, which tell stories, that have been kept quiet so far.

On Saturday, June 15, 2024,  in the interactive workshop Memory Games, the artist Nina Prader invited the participants to share personal and collective memories as well as perspectives on history, National Socialism and historical knowledge on the basis of designed card sets. The stories told by the workshop participants created a living archive that can be used as an educational tool to commemorate the Shoah and as an awareness-raising exercise on issues of history, identity, positioning, flight, asylum, exile and migration.

On Sunday, June 16, 2024, the democracy trainer Vatan Ukaj led a body- and movement-centred workshop in which strategies for dealing with remembrance work in the present were tried out.

In a panel discussion in the congress hall of the National Socialist party rally grounds, Max Czollek, Sharon Dodua Otoo, Dr. Frederek Musall and Hannan Salamat discussed “Languages of Remembrance | Languages of Forgetting”. Amongst other topics, the panelists discussed how the Nuremberg trials contributed to the establishment of a historical narrative that described the German atonement and which has been pursued to the present day, especially by falsifiers of history. This form of writing history and the “we” of our society associated with it ignores both the large number of perpetrators as well as the victims. The event was moderated by Benjamin Fischer.

A special highlight of IMPORT/EXPORT: REMEMBRANCE was the dynamic memory lab on the topic “Codes of Memory in Sinti*- and Roma* Communities” that was exhibited for several weeks. The exhibition curated by Hamze Bytyçi was expanded by regional perspectives on Roma* and Sinti*.

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The »Memory Matters« festival was held in Neumünster with the Sinti Union Schleswig-Holstein. Neumünster is an important location for this, as the city has its own history of excluding minorities, particularly the Sinti* community. It is precisely this community that has dedicated itself to a plural remembrance culture in its city.

Is solidary remembrance possible while preserving the unique nature  of community-specific memories? What role do memorial initiatives play in solidary remembrance work? How can a solidary remembrance practice work against societal polarisation? These questions were discussed within the scope of the festival and new insights were gleaned.

Max Czollek, curator of the CPPD, emphasised that the shift to the right in Europe strongly challenges the idea of a post-migrant society as a concept that can support society. New remembrance cultural approaches could help to develop a supported plural society. Ibrahim Arslan, a survivor of the attacks in Mölln, emphasised the important structural impulses of remembrance initiatives for the democratisation of the German remembrance landscape. Hanna Veiler, President of the German Jewish Students’ Union, called for more empathy and greater awareness of solidarity in light of current crises. Kelly Laubinger, chair of the cooperation partner Sinti Union Schleswig-Holstein spoke about the empowering experiences of solidarity amongst those affected. The audience interrupted the panel discussion moderated by Jo Frank with applause multiple times.

Two workshops were part of the supporting program: The artist Nina Prader held a zine workshop focusing on the function of zines as a remembrance-political and community-building tool in the participatory process of zine design. Ibrahim Arslan, survivor of the racist arson attacks in Mölln in 1992, gave a workshop on the work of commemorative initiatives and the potential for political action on the level of civil society.

From 27-31 August 2024, the Dietrich-Keuning-Haus, Staatstheater Dortmund, Nordstadtliga, and the CPPD pointed out new paths in remembrance with the festival series »Memory Matters«: the focus of the festival on plural remembrance culture was placed on the interface between remembrance culture and football.

As part of the metropolitan region of Rhein-Ruhr, Dortmund today, after many years of structural changes, is a university city with a diverse cultural community and a self-proclaimed “capital of football”. In Dortmund, as in some other German cities, football has a significant integrative power. In doing so, football clubs work in a remarkable state of conflicting priorities: while, for example, the salaries of professional players are often exorbitant and seem uncoupled from societal realities, both the players as well as the clubs themselves function more and more as actors in a socio-political context. They use their influence to move forward societal issues, including remembrance policy questions.

To kick off the festival, the sociologist and CPPD member Aladin El-Mafaalani invited over 300 audience members to the Dietrich-Keuning-Haus for the PENTAGON Special. Mirza Demirović, social scientist and coordinator of Nordstadtliga, highlighted that nationalist tendencies in football should be moved more strongly into the focus of remembrance political work as a warning signal for societal changes. Shary Reeves, journalist, moderator, and former football player, emphasised the importance of comprehensively examining racism and discrimination in football. Neven Subotić, a former German football player, author, and founder of educational project well:fair foundation, called for the individual dimension of remembrance work to taken seriously and made more accessible. Moderator Aladin El-Mafaalani referred to the intertwining of financially strong sponsors in the club system as well as the lack of confrontation with the club’s own history, using the example of the arms company Rheinmetall.

Three accompanying workshops addressed different target groups on the topic of remembrance culture and football: In the workshop Football Unites!? – The Question of Remembrance and Football, educational and pedagogical experts came together to jointly discuss how to handle discrimination, racism, anti-Semitism, and the tension regarding remembrance in football. An additional workshop was intended for young people and young adults and used theatrical methods to interlink football and performance. The third workshop, under the facilitation of Shary Reeves and in cooperation with Nordstadtliga, supported girls from a wide variety of ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds.

In light of a strengthening of antidemocratic movements throughout Germany, also in Dresden and Saxony in the last ten years through Pegida and the so-called Monday walks, the CPPD, together with Faiths in Tune, the Dresden Foreigners’ Council as well as Staatsschauspiel Dresden, presented new paths in remembrance as part of the festival series »Memory Matters«.

The focus of the events was placed on the interface of remembrance culture and resistance: which resistances must remembrance culture be able to endure? How can remembrances in East Germany also be seen as resistance practices? What role can a resilient remembrance culture assume in times of a right-wing backlash throughout Europe?

Within the scope of the festival, the author Anne Rabe elaborated on the lack of coming to terms with the East German past on the basis of specific generations and their lack of orientation in a society with new values and options for actions. This historian Sarah Grandke pointed out that the victims of the East German regime must also receive a worthy space in society that can be supported by speaking openly about personal experiences. This is the only way that the enduring silence can be broken. In the essays read by the journalist Andrea Hanna Hünniger, resistances against reunification through silence were also focussed upon. Multi-directional references to the topic were made by Kelly Laubinger, chair of the German Federal Association of Sinti and Roma, and Dan Thy Nguyen, director, actor, and essayist. They constantly highlighted the significance of the support of a plural remembrance culture throughout the entire country. It was moderated by CPPD member Anja Fahlenkamp.

A participatory city walk through Dresden that focussed on discrimination and asylum as well as a workshop in the Montagscafé of Staatsschauspiels Dresden for people who have experience migration and flight also made it possible to come to terms with resistances in remembrance.

European Convention

The cultural encounter »Memorias | Memories« in Madrid made clear that Germany and Spain have different points of departure due to their complex experiences with dictators and political upheaval and thus lead different remembrance policy discussions. This creates a necessity for developing a shared basis for a plural European culture of remembrance.

The sociologist Emilio Silva Barrera, founder of the Association to Reclaim Historical Memory (ARMH), as well as Dr. Max Czollek, author and curator of the CPPD, discussed the support of political actions that integrate diverse perspectives within the public remembrance discourse. Czollek referred to the German remembrance policy, which produces a one-dimensional narrative of reparations, while Silva emphasised that the need for a coming to terms with both the Franco dictatorship as well as the civil war is growing.

Loreto Urraca, the Spanish representative of the collective Disobedient Stories, Members of Genocides for Remembrance, Truth and Justice, made clear how people can be activated on a remembrance politics level beyond academic discourses by placing their personal family history at the centre of their activism. Noa K. Ha directed the attention of the large audience to the post-colonial perception of public urban space.

With Tunay Önder, Julia Cortegana de la Fuente, Victorino Mayoral Cortés, and Jo Frank, four representatives of educational and cultural initiatives presented a variety of projects for communicating plural remembrance culture. No matter whether is is documentary theatre, political education projects, public digital remembrance archives, or solidary networks for plural remembrance culture – all called for the expansion of European networking. In addition, it was stated that the work is always shaped by current conflicts. For example, the war in the Middle East had also influenced the discussion there.

Closing of the festival »Memory Matters«

During the public event “How To Go On? – Remembering the Present. February 24, October 7, and 9 June” in cooperation with the Akademie der Künste, more than 150 interested parties from civil society as well as a remembrance culture specialist audience came together alongside members of the CPPD network. Three panel discussions presented the singularities as well as the simultaneities and entanglements of wars, right-wing violence and the significance of plural cultures of remembrances.

The journalist Olesya Yaremchuk, the managing director of OFEK e.V., Marina Chernivsky, and the activist and managing director of Austausch e.V., Igor Mitchnik, discussed the devastating effects of the Russia war of aggression against Ukraine from a human-centred focus: What effects does the war have for those affected and their relatives? How does it influence democracies in Europe? How to go on – also in terms of remembrance policy?

The journalist and head of department at taz Dinah Riese spoke with Hanna Veiler, president of the Jewish Students’ Union in Germany, and Ahmad Dakhnous, an activist and political speaker, about the war in Israel and Gaza, its significance for Germany and which role a plural culture of remembrance can play in it. The controversial and emotionally charged panel discussion created space for plural perspectives and showed impressively how respectfully dealing with different positions can be successful.

Peggy Piesche, director of the department Civic Education and Plural Democracy at the German Federal Agency for Civic Education, and Kristina Lunz, the co-founder of the Center for Feminist Foreign Policy, discussed this year’s European elections and the consequences of polarisation for Germany and Europe. They specific options for action as well as the role of empathy, collective remembrance and collaboration for the shaping of our democracies. At the end, the diplomat Anja Fahlenkamp emphasised understanding intersectionality as a key concept for being able to understand present challenges.

As part of the closing event of the festival »Memory Matters«, people working in the fields of remembrance culture and political education from various institutions, organisations, and initiatives as well as members of the CPPD network came together for the network partner meeting of the CPPD for two days. Over the course of two intense working days, the participants dealt with remembrance-specific topics and elaborated foundations for the development of innovative remembrance policy measures for the promotion of diversity, inclusions, and historic precision.

The network partner meeting, which offered a unique space for civil society organizations to exchange ideas, was accompanied by the expertise of Vatan Ukaj and Alexandra Perlowa from the collective „Wertansich(t)“.