 My name is Stefanie Endlich. I work freelance in Berlin and I'm writing in journals and I'm making books and also making exhibitions. For example, in the last year's open-air exhibitions on history and on art in public room and I'm also teaching at the Berlin University of Arts, especially for art in public space. Every system had its own art projects for memorials and monuments and I would not see such a very close connection between art and democracy. Artists have the chance to apply, to take part in competition and then you have several different ideas where a jury can discuss on and choose one of it to be built or to be realized and I think this is the democratic point. Without looking at the past you cannot understand your presence and for young people it's more and more difficult in all those many informations that they get every day from many sites and from the media and internet and so on to know something about history and I think that the art in public space and the memorial places can offer a special entrance to the history of certain realms or of certain events. Maybe they can help to heal the wounds but on the other side maybe also they keep the wounds open because this idea of monuments healing the wounds is a very traditional idea I think of course one important aspect is always the comfort for the families or for friends of those who have died that those who have died are not forgotten but for the society in general it's better not to say the wounds are healed we close the door we finish the topic but to get again and again with new questions from today the look at history and I think that's what contemporary art can do very well to find new ways to connect the dealing with the past with problems we have today and our views from today so maybe not keeping wounds open but keeping questions open and constantly open and continuing dialogue on what has happened and trying to find new views and new solutions that's more important than healing and finishing the story. Of course too many monuments in a close space can be counterproductive I see this when I talk with my students they often say Berlin is so full of monuments and memorial places you cannot even breathe freely I think it's relative the concept of this first large monument there was to concentrate the memory on the Jewish victims and not to take into the project the victims of the other racial persecution of the Nazis like the Gypsies and like the homosexuals or the euthanasia victims so the result of this very early decisions in the early 90s was that near to this Eutolikos Memorial we find two, three, four maybe soon five other memorials for other groups of victims of the national socialist terror and persecution and to understand why there are so many and so close together you have to look and analyze the history of how it developed the political decision for this place the political decision for the concept of those of those memorials. I think the decentralized memorials are at least as much or even more interesting to understand history than the real large ones we shall soon have and have already started to have large memorial places and monuments for the freedom of the reunited Germany for the victims of Stalinism and early communist period in the former GDR this will also come and also come on a national level it's also a problem that when you try to create a monument or you try to decide about art proposals in a competition you always have this event question in the background how interesting is it for the tourists how can it be simple enough to be understood by many people you know that contemporary art is very often is difficult and cannot be understood easily by people who are not familiar with art in general the tourist aspect is an aspect which is there you have to look at it you have to respect it but it should not make the memorial places or the memorial art easier and more adventurous of course politicians can manipulate history and memorial culture maybe not in a very direct way because we live in a democracy but in an indirect, intertwined way where political impulses wander through the political institutions and get political support you can see this development very well with a future freedom memorial which will be built in maybe two years we are talking about the step from the so-called negative memory to the so-called positive memory but talking about negative memory the word negative actually meant something positive it meant that you are wise enough and strong enough to deal with the negative developments in history and to deal with the crimes that have happened in the Nazi time what we have now is that people say we don't want a negative culture anymore positive culture means identification, our successes, memorial places have to show our successes this is different and I think it will give a lot change in the next years or it has even started in a memorial culture let me talk about Germany and maybe also a little bit about the Eastern Europe countries I think it's not a good solution to tear them down and to make them vanish and be forgotten but all the monuments show the view of a certain time and when you look at those monuments today you can understand how the time when they were created what ideas were important at that time or how politics were working at that time and of course for monuments which were created in dictatorship that would show the official view of the system at that time those monuments can and must be explained on different levels we call it historical commendation I have a lot of interesting projects which give commentations to existing memorials which cannot very well be understood in the language of former times by people today or especially by young people I don't know because this is a political decision we ask people in Germany they have never heard of this decision still in Germany we have the 27th of January as a day of remembrance for the Nazi victims it's the day of liberation of Auschwitz and I am very skeptical about the development of the last years trying to bring together the dictatorship experiences of Stalinism and National Socialism in common memorial days and common memorial museums I think it's a step backward or many steps backward the times were memorial art and monuments concentrated of mourning the victims this will be the conception of the new day of 3rd of August the victims of the Stalin Hitler pact and the following years could lead to the attitude we are all victims all the European nations are victims of history of dictatorship but from Spain and France to Russia and the Baltic states I don't think this works it's a political construction which will not work this initiative should deal with concrete topics and sites and historical events and then from there get the error to the general topics that's better than the other way around the other way around doesn't work very well