 Yeah, dear participants, this is our lunch lecture. I'm saying hello from Basel and great Claudia Toyne, who is in Vienna. Hello. And I quickly introduced your biography. So you have studied in Marburg. That's why you did your PhD. And then for your postdoc, you went to the Humboldt University in Berlin and you were then working on early medieval material still. And also in Berlin, you did your habitation and then became a senior assistant at the institute there. And since 2007, you are professor of historical archeology in the University of Vienna. Your special interest and expertise is in conflict archeology of the 20th century. And you also work on medieval marginal environments, medieval and modern marginal environments. You are also the president of the well-known publication and conference series Ruralia, who many people might know while listening. And you are the president of the Austrian Association for Medieval Archeology. And I remember well that in September, late September last year, we already had a big discussion on, let's say, archeology of modernity, which was hosted by Degulf, the German Association for Pre- and Proto-History. And your paper you gave there is published already, but in German. And I'm very much looking forward to have you present the thoughts and working them now, presenting them now to us in English so that more people can appreciate them. You'll be speaking to us, Claudia, about 30 years of contemporary archeology, gains in knowledge, challenges, opportunities and future tasks. Please, Claudia, continue. Thank you very much, Sophie, for this kind introduction. Dear colleagues, I'd like to thank the organizers of the EAA for the invitation and the opportunity to speak on a topic that has received a huge interest in the field of archeological sub-disciplines in recent years, the archeological research of sites of the 20th century. The constant expansion of epochs and subject area in archeology in the last 30 years led to fruitful research on the last 100 years. This research is one of the youngest field in archeology, and in this research field we take a look at our recent past. I say consciously our past because we examine sites and events to which we have an active memory and our research concerns sites and events to which our parents and grandparents experience which were and are formative for our life, thus we often have a direct or indirect relationship to it. For Central Europe, many of the investigations are related to the Nazi dictatorship, including World War II. One main subject concerns the extermination sites and concentration camps. These sites are not only located in Germany but in many parts of Europe and even the whole world, but also other sites which are connected with many other armed conflict, with war, with dictatorship and the focus of the investigations. Keywords are World War I, World War II, the Cold War, but also the former Yugoslavia in the 19th or the Spanish Civil War in the 30s. Research also takes place on genocide and mass murder, for example in Srebrenica or in Rwanda, or traces of dictatorship in South America are investigated. Research takes place at sites of civilian protests, the research fields belong to the field of conflict archaeology, but also other investigations will be mentioned in this lecture. For some of the audience this archaeological field may be new and I would like to explain the importance of contemporary archaeology. Those archaeologists among the audience who are already intensively researching archaeological sites of the 20th century will already know some of what I will present. In the following I would like to present and discuss the following aspects. At the beginning I would like to make some methodological preliminary remarks and say something about the sources. Then I would like to give you a brief outline on the research of the last 30 years and show you the context of the investigations. I will include goal research questions and the outcomes. This will be followed by some ongoing research task which also concerns the preservation of monuments. Finally I would like to make a few remarks on the challenges, the opportunities and future perspectives. My research in conflict archaeology is focused on internment camps. Several examples will therefore be closely related to this field of research but I will discuss other topics as well. At the beginning I would like to address some methodological aspects. According to today's understanding and not at least influenced by the various cultural trends and material cultural studies, archaeology explores insights into cultural development of humans, human society, human activities and communication through material culture. As in all archaeological sub-disciplines, the material world and the context in which the finds are embedded frame our investigation. In this way we try to understand and explain the past and the long history is inscribed in the ground like a parliament zest. This is true for the older aspox as well as for modern times. The sometimes still used argument for the exclusivity of material remains for prehistoric epochs and the resulting old opinion that for the time since the middle ages we have comprehensive knowledge about the path through written sources is an old paradigm and should be overcome. These arguments have disregarded the fact that we always express our human activities, communication and cultural development through various media, the word, the image, the object but also gestures and many other carriers of information. And it is important to stress that the humans use this multitude ways of communication not always in the same consistent way. We often describe events differently through words, through objects or images or have different perceptions. By using all historical sources, congruence and contradictions can become visible. The diversity and density of sources is one of the great potentials of historical archaeology and thus also of contemporary archaeology. It should be emphasized that it is certainly not a matter of determining which of the different sources correspond best to reality in former occurrence. It is not a matter of falsifying or verifying the various sources. Relevant are rather investigations into motivation, the perception and reasons for the different human representations to similar developments and through events, through words, images and objects. One of the essential points of the archaeology of our recent past thus relates to questions by people act congruently or differently with different sources. Another aspect should be emphasized. No source genre is extensively available. There are always gaps. Much knowledge from image or word-based sources have been lost even in modern times. Archaeological sources are then more or less primary sources for certain questions. Often it can be stated that in the written sources or picture sources a lot of information is missing especially on areas of everyday life or economic processes. Fields on which archaeology has always great strength. These questions can be investigated more or less exclusively through material culture. But conversely, there are also areas in which archaeological finds and features are lacking in which human activities have not been reflected in materiality. Here it is necessary to ask why and what might be missing. Through the diversity of sources therefore a much more complex picture of the past can be sketched than if only one genre of sources is available. Different media and sources thus allow different perspectives and perceptions on human behaviour. A significant trigger for the extensive archaeological investigations on the 20th century was a renewed general political intensive debate on the National Socialist Period since the mid-80s. In this context it is the so important speech of the then German president Richard von Weizsäcker on the occasion of the 40th anniversary on the German surrender after World War II should be mentioned. He emphasised that the 8th of May in 1945 was not a day of defeat for the Germans but a day of liberation. At the same time community-based initiatives in Germany have shown that remains of the Gestapo prison just below the surface are still preserved by uncovering them on the ground of what is now the topography of terror memorial in Berlin. Community-based initiatives have initiated also the first excavation in former Nazi camps in Germany. A first excavation took place already in the 60s which is hardly known and did not result in further investigation the uncovering of one of the crematoria in Auschwitz-Birkenau. A small excavation in the German extermination site Kulhoff in today's Poland in 1987 can be named as a starting point for the intensive research. For Germany the excavations in the sub-camp of the Konzentration Camp Huchenwald in Witten-Annen form an important initiative beginning in 1991 as you can see here. This was followed by excavations in the major concentration camps such as Kuchenwald, Dachau, Sachsenhausen and also the Women's Concentration Camp Ravensburg or in Mauthausen in Austria and in the extermination sites Belgium, W. Wojtka, Dinka, Kulhoff in today's Poland. For the Nazi extermination site it is important to mention that there are no blueprints from the 40s and a ground plan can only be created through archaeological investigations. This can be described as basic research. Somewhat later in the early 2000s, numerous of other investigations followed in other former concentration camps, sub-camps and then in other Nazi camps like the juvenile detention camp or prisoner of war camps. The investigations in the forced labor camps are of special importance because the number of these camps increased rapidly in the last two years of the war as the forced labor were forced to work in armament industry. You can see this in the statistic. It should be mentioned that the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum believes that there were over 40,000 internment camps in the German right or the territories annexed and occupied by the Nazis. There were about seven extermination sites, 25 main concentration camps, 1,200 sub-camps, about 25,000 forced labor camps, 1,000 of ghettos, POW camps and other internment camps. Thus, research today ranged from Finland and Scandinavia, the British general eyes, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Belarus and some other countries in southern Europe as well. Numerous POW camps were archaeologically examinated in the U.S. and Canada in which German Wehrmacht soldiers were imprisoned. Further other internment camps came into the focus in the U.S. such as the 15 camps where Japanese living in the western U.S. were interned during World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Further research in the camps concerns the different treatment of different groups of detainees by the National Socialists for example. At several sites where detainees from different nations were housed we always see clearly worse conditions for detainees from Poland or the Soviet Union. Here, Barbered Weyer, you can see this, was additionally laid underground at the borders of the camps. The barracks were built less solidly and had no stone foundation and there were clearly fewer sanitary facilities. But the fact that Soviet prisoners of very often prisoner of war were held there is evident also by objects with Cyrillic letters. In many cases, a major goal of the investigations in the internment camp was to make a grand plan of the barracks and further structures of the camps inside the fence. As well as the central locations of the camp, the role-call, the killing facilities in the Nazi camps, it was about the preliminary uncovering and visualization of the camp. It was about showing and giving visitors access to the camps to allow remembrance at the historic sites. This means that at many places there were a desire to establish new memorials or to redesign memorials both in Europe and in the US. Here the archaeological excavation form an essential basis for the conception of the memorials. These memorials are historical places. Today's appearance is strongly influenced by the post-war period and shows post-war actions. This includes the fact that many barracks were demolished, used for other purpose or the camps were completely demolished and built over after war. So the memorials, as you see here for Mauthausen, are more like landscape parks. The dense building development of the entire area even outside of the camp itself is difficult to grasp today. What we can visit today shows the development after the war. We can also clearly demonstrate this in many cases through archaeological investigations on buildings that still exist. As an example, the Brosselbräe barrack in Mauthausen can be mentioned. The small sex cabins with a door without a lock and a viewing slit so that the surveillance was always possible still exist. But the original painting of the rooms, which was perhaps meant to make room a little more pleasant, has literally been whitewashed or yellowwashed. On other wall decorations, for example, the thick room in the infirmary was also whitewashed. So we have to distinguish several time levels in the study to make a clear distinction between the operational periods of the camp and the post-port period. Some of the excavations took place at garbage pits of the camp, always recovering masses of finds which are now part of the museum's presentation. But these garbage pits were usually created after the liberation. So the demolishing of the camps and the garbage pits do not necessarily show activities of the camp management or the detainees, but of the Allied liberators, of the Germans, the Poles, the French, the British, etc., depending on the post-war country in which these camps or memorials are located now. So apart from the death camps that the Nazis themselves destroyed to cover their crimes, these activities happened after the war. It shows, let me perhaps exaggerate a little, it shows actions of us, of our parents and grandparents. During the excavations in the internment camps, we always recover a huge mass of finds. A multitude of research questions are linked to this. My personal interest is in the conditions of the imprisonment and the survival of coping strategies or also options for actions by the detainees. Based on sociological theories of social behavior under extreme conditions, it is possible to trace such coping strategies through objects. Primarily, this applies to physical survival. Detainees carefully maintained or managed their clothing in order to be able to wear clothes that were half way adapted to the weather. The hand operated through needles and stitches are clearly to distinguish from those of sewing machines. Detainees made their shoes from rubber tires to provide some protection for the feet. Detainees made spoons themselves to be able to eat with. Care or concern for a minimum standard of hygiene and thus a personal sense of well-being can also be evidenced by homemade comps or toothbrushes. Psychological studies show that people who no longer maintain any kind of hygiene lose a will to live. It is also very important to ensure oneself of one's own name and thus identity, e.g. writing one's own name, first name or initials on various objects. In this way, detainees show that it is not the number assigned by the authority or the SS that determines their identity but their own name. However, it should also be not excluded that by writing one's own name, possessions could be marked. Another way to show identity is through religious objects as you can see also here. We can also note that there was an attempt to continue reminiscent of life before imprisonment at a minimal standard. For example, we find evidence for playing games, making music, making drawings, writing political statements, embroidering fabrics, or even the Japanese garden in the camps of the Japanese people are example for this behavior. These objects might distract from the imprisonment of terror for a short moment. Recently, ongoing and further research question can be related to a comparison of the various internment camps. Can different functions be recognized by the camp structure of specific finds? Do the objects of concentration camps differ from those of forced labour camps, prison camps or prison of war camps? Can different detainees' communities be identified by the finds? Do the finds differ between men's and women's camps? Regarding the civilian forced labour, it is assumed that minimum 50% of them were women. Can we identify them? What about children? There are some children's toys. If you can see or not can see differences between the detainees' communities, how can this be interpreted? How can prisoners of war camps characterize in different countries? There were preliminary two groups in the camps, the detainees and the guards of perpetrators. While the guards had access to all areas, some doors were closed for the detainees. Killing or executions were sometimes carried out in the public, sometimes in secret. Few analysis can provide new insights here. In addition, a large number of people, suppliers of goods of all kinds and institutions were involved in the operation of the camps. The camps were often located near residential areas and were visible to the population. Important are also the areas where the detainees were forced to work. These aspects have been also recently included in the investigation and must be deepened. An important field of research concerns battlefield archaeology. Battlefield trenches and placements were investigated. The cause of the battles can be observed. Killed soldiers still laying on the former battlefield or mass graves were recovered. A comprehensive excavation on the western front of the First World War has shown this impressively. But also new war tactics such as guerrilla warfare can be clearly described, for example, in the excavations in Saudi Arabia, where the rebellion of the Arabs supported by the British, to which Lawrence of Arabia also belonged, against the Ottomans was investigated. Here the changing tactics of the Ottomans could be investigated. The initially linear defense was abandoned in favor of small positions. This can be interpreted as reactions to the guerrilla warfare by the Arabs. The colleagues found many remains of the Ottoman presence, but only little of the Arab or British opponents. Only a few campsites, river bullets, and shell fragments provide evidence of them. Recently, objects have also been found that can be associated with Lawrence of Arabia himself. A large number of bunkers can also be mentioned as well, which still exist all over the world. In the cities of Hamburg, Berlin, and Vienna, there are still flag towers. Numerous remains of the 630 long west wall or the 2700 kilometers long Atlantic wall from Norway to France are also archaeological remains. Briefly, I want to point out to the investigations on other wars or armed conflict. Comprehensive studies have been conducted, for example, on the Spanish Civil War. Spanish colleagues have been excavated sites and emplacements of both the nationalists and the Republicans. They clearly can show the different support, for example, the German nationalists or the Italian fascists for the Spanish nationalists. The last brief mention should be made on several works in Ireland, where on the one hand the Northern Ireland conflict in the 70s, and the very different narratives are in focus. There are also numerous studies in the so-called Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916. An immensely important aspect lies in the archaeological examination of death in conflict areas around the world. This includes individuals killed and those who were buried in mass graves. During the excavations in concentration and extermination camps, we always find human remains, you see these in the cartons. Excavations can help identify the killed, personal belongings can be found and returned to the surviving relatives, and those killed can be buried with dignity. Archaeologists or forensic archaeologists were significantly involved in the uncovering of mass graves, for example, in Spabenitzka in Rwanda or also in Argentina and other sites. In this context, it is important to mention that the archaeological documentation following certain strict protocols are used as evidence in international courts to prove crimes against humanity. That forensic archaeology plays a very important role. A very important and very current topic concerns migration. In the so-called Undocumented Migration Project, unauthorized migration from Mexico to the US is currently researched. Starting in 2009, the long-term anthropological analysis explores the clandestine border crossing between northern Mexico and southern Arizona. Material culture associated with the migration includes clamor flesh clothing, special water bottoms and other items and lots of backpacks. There is a small similar approach initiated by Italian colleagues that examines migration from Africa through Italy to Central Europe. These are the, I think, very important question. What do you bring with you to Europe? One could ask in a different way which materials things are so important for us that we would take them with us on a flight. A question that certainly touches essential aspects of archaeology. Another key word is protest archaeology. In England, archaeological investigations took place in the woman's protest camp, Greenham Common in the US, on the side of the protest camp in the front of the Nevada Test Site, in Germany in the protest camp, Fries-Wendland, on the side of the formerly planned nuclear waste repository, Gawlin. The uncovering and the objects have shown that there are also numerous finds that one would not associate with the political background of the protestors. Also a point that is only clear through archaeological research. A further category industrial sites should be mentioned. Industrial archaeology is not limited to the early period of industrialization. For the 20th century on the one hand the armament industry of the World Wars should be mentioned, in which in many cases false labels were put to work by the Nazis during World War II. Industrial archaeological investigations are carried out also on many other sites. The investigation of technical remains from the last 200 years is guided by the approach of understanding industrialization as part of culture. Thus the focus is not only on researching technical remains and infrastructure, but also on industrial culture, the cultural history of industrialization. In industrial regions such as the World Region in Germany, the focus on this aspect has led to a change in the perception of regional identity in particular in the recent years. Social archaeological research questions are linked to this. Saying this, it should be clearly emphasized that an archaeology of the recent past should not be limited to the 20th century and its conflicts, but to the same extent on the one hand other topics and issues are to be considered, and on the other hand the 19th century is of great importance for the 20th century. The 19th century is characterized by nationalism, colonialism, massive industrialization and globalization, which also led to a tremendous growth of consumption. For the study of the development of these processes, the material remains of the 19th century are elementary. The production of mass produced goods, the trade of a wide variety of goods all over the world led to the globalization in the 19th century, which increases in the 20th century. For example, ceramics, porcelain, clay pipes, tiles from Belgium, the Netherlands, England, China, Italy, Germany and many other regions of the world, including the colonies, make visible the complexity and global connection and also colonialism. The material world lends itself perfectly to such investigations. Another example may be mentioned. Archaeological investigation in deserted villages should incorporate the modern area. This made it possible to overcome older paradigms that postulate a long lasting medieval constancy of villages, structures and so few progressive developments. It became clear that especially in the 19th century, significant changes could be observed. New grain varieties appeared, farms were reconstructed and barns were built for grain storage. The recent structure of the villages was probably formed only in the 19th century and has little to do with older structures. The importance of such excavations, which includes the 19th and 20th century, can be important for the local population and the local cultural history, as I have mentioned it for the industrial culture. Other research in the Czech Republic examines the development of settlements and cemeteries after World War II when many people of Germany origin had to leave the country. Thus, investigations of the recent past may address sites and objects of life and housing, state and communal institutions, work and consumption, infrastructure, leisure, religion and cult, dumping and, as already discussed, objects and sites of death and conflict and protest. It has become certainly clear that sites of our recent past are an extensive challenge to archaeological heritage. Several examples in Europe clearly show that the authorities face the challenges. This applies to numerous remains, for example the camp or the bunkers, but also sites of craft and industry and sunken submarines and vessels and crushed aircrafts. In England, for example, all shipwrecks of the English coast are documented. In Austria, a project to record all the Nazi camps is ongoing. You also see the map from the Nazi campsite in Berlin. Similar projects are also underway in various countries. To come to an end. An archaeology of our recent past bears a lot of challenges, but also opportunities from which some future tasks arise. Sites of conflict were so far in the focus of the research mine as well. I think this is immensely important that we do not deal exclusively with conflicts on the 20th century, but also look at numerous other aspects and questions and use its strength of archaeological methods for new insights. The number of sites are immense. I mentioned that there have been over 40,000 Nazi internment camps. In the US there were over a thousand prisoner of war camps and countless other gulags in the former Soviet Union just to mention some internment camps. Previous research has focused only on the fenced in camps. The focus should involve outer areas, the places where the prisoners were put to force labour, the wider infrastructure of the camp, which is described by the term contaminated landscapes. Countless other sites which are worth to be researched, but this will not be possible. We recover masses of finds including lots of industrial produced finds such as bottles, porcelain or nails. In my opinion we urgently need to consider how to deal with these large quantities of sites and finds. The huge mass of finds also pose great problems for the conservators. Should we preserve everything? Should we develop strategies and keep only specific selected objects? I would like to stress that such a debate is not only necessary for the recent past but also for older epochs. In the publication often only a few finds are presented as examples but not the entire spectrum. There are quite a few databases in which the finds from the various excavations have been recorded. Here is mine from the Mauthausen excavation but knowledge of them among colleagues is low. In order to answer only some of the research questions raised above there should be access to these databases. Perhaps another challenge has been brought to our attention by contemporary historical archaeology. Archaeology has a lot to do with ethical moral behavior. This is true for the 20th century as well as for older epochs. In Europe ethical question and tasks have hardly been discussed so far in the field of archaeology whereas in the Anglo-American area they have been addressed for a longer time. For example there are several ethical codes of conduct in the US, in Australia and elsewhere whereby for example the adherence to scientific standards or the obligation not to illegally disposed archaeological cultural objects are stipulated. The Vermillion Agreement on Human Remains from 1989. There is a respectful handling of mortal remains is decidedly emphasized. The aspects of the challenges presented you so far also make clear chances. The intensive research of the material culture of the recent past enriches us with numerous insight through the human being and the human acting and communication in the last 100 years. Let me add one last sentence. Archaeology never stops. By now 20 years of the 21st century have already passed. We will soon have to look at the 21st century as well. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you very much Claudia for the brilliant talk and for the overview of all the different aspects. I would like to encourage our listeners to write questions in the chat. Cynthia has a very nice comment already. And so has Sonja. Maybe I used a few moments people need to write for a first question from my side and that also pulls up. But Sonja mentions that we have that the emotional involvement in such sites, especially when you excavate there is very big. I remember working in Flossenburg for an excavation, a small team for Arktröym. And every morning we had a person, a man coming in and he mumbled into his beard. There were not 40,000 Poles that were killed here. And that reminds me of we won't be able to falsify or verify that number. I cannot answer this question of the 40,000. But I was excavating the little train that went from the camp to the cremation of them. And I was removing the green grass and it used to be just a park. And now we were making it able that people saw the things again. And it was kind of creating facts that this history really happened. And that you will remember Bonhoeffer who was killed in that camp and actually went through that little train. Yes, yes. As I said, these remains are just under the surface. So it's only a few centimeters to go down and then we can see all these remains. Most of them are forgotten, but they are not lost. They are there under the surface. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yes, it is emotional. And I would like to say that I mourn for every victim in this camp everywhere on the whole world. But when I work there, I keep distance and so I can do this scientific work. And that helps me to work on these places for the victims. That's my motivation. Yeah, yeah, indeed. There are congratulations to your talk a lot and remarked by Cornelius that all archaeology can make a link with contemporary society. That's certainly not only the most recent. Yes, that is quite important. And these sites are historical sites. I never would use the word authentic sites because they are so overformed after the war. Yes, what we and our parents did, we have to say it in the clear words. Yes, and soon we have to look at our past. Well, I really do remember a gallium and green and common and so on. So it's and the Berlin Wall, of course. So it's also my history. Yeah. Yes, we have a question from Cornelius. We can quickly. Contemporary archaeology has come intrepidly long over the past decades. Why do you think this field is seen by some as the as peripheral to the discipline? Well, I hope it will change, but I don't want to blame somebody, but there are some pre-historians who say archaeology has only to do with material culture and not with times when we have written sources and so on. And I think it's not any more a peripheral sub-discipline of archaeology. It's quite vivid and you can see it when you have a look at the journals of contemporary archaeology or historical archaeology or conflict archaeology in the last five years or eight years there. A huge amount of articles on the last decades. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There is a lot of color asking question. Many thanks for this important input. I wonder whether you have detected any impacts made by contemporary archaeology on the debates in contemporary history, sociology? Well, I'm in a close contact with colleagues in the contemporary history and I'm working very, very close together with them here in Vienna at the University of Vienna, but also with the staff if I may use this word of the memorial. And I have stated it quite briefly that I use sociological theories for my interpretation as well. And I'm in contact with these colleagues mainly here at the University in Vienna, but I'm quite in a close contact with them. And I may also say that just recently in the last term we made a joint seminar here at the University with a colleague from the contemporary history and me as archaeologist and we put together the students from the contemporary history and the archaeology. And we worked with written sources, with images, with images and with the archaeological objects of extermination inside. So there is a close cooperation. Well, for me it works very good, but I know that it's some places it's not so good, but I hope it will be better in the future. And Greta asks whether there will, I think that is taking up Cynthia's point. What was Cynthia's point? It was in World War I think, Northern France. I haven't seen this. Yeah. I greatly admire it. Yes. And Greta asks, will there be new formats using the finds or excavated structures? Will there be a new way or how they will be presented in the Gedenkstetten? So in the last years as I know also from Flöstenwerk and Madhausen and Sachsenhausen and many other memorials, objects we find are shown in the showcases. But in some memorials I know that the objects are also used and I think this is very important for, we in Germany say, in German say, politische Erziehung, politische Bildung, political education to say, to try to translate it, and that the young people experience or learn something about camps through objects. When you have objects such as self-made school or whatever and you can learn a lot about the structures and I think this is very, very important. And there are some beginnings in the use of these objects in this direction and I always argue with the staff of the memorials to do it more intensively. On the other side, the heritage officers says, oh no, these are original material, careful, careful, careful, but I'd say it's important that we use them for the young people. Yeah, so they are a bit afraid to hand them out to the pupils or yeah, that's true. But they can take gloves for the hands or yes, there are possibilities that the young people can work with. Yeah, I'm sure. Alexander Welling is asking, is there a reactionary archaeology today, so metal detectorists from right-wing groups glorify war and nationalism and just use the same objects and things to tell the history different probably? Sometimes, well these metal detectorists, they are mainly on the campsite, sometimes in the campsite, but they will not find for them interesting things. And so they are mainly on the battlefields. It's not only the right-wing groups, but it's also sometimes media, like newspapers like The Sun in England or the Bild Zeitung in Germany and so on. And they tell stories just to have a sensation and that doesn't help at all. Maybe you will remember there was a British group that was looking for the train with a goat treasure in some mining things and so on. And these are, I think, more dangerous, yes. So the right-wing groups, they go for the victory and not for the victim when they look at, maybe another story from Flossenberg from my excavation. I was very much confronted with right-wing, not only with this person, but with my own people who did the excavation. There were quite poor people and some from German origin, some from extra-Muslim, and they would agree on the bad Poles who take away their work today. And that was their conversation on the excavation and I could just not listen to them. I said, please stop, you go now and look at the film that explains the history of this place. And they said, no, this is too hard. We don't want to see that. I got an extra worker who was sentenced to work because he had threatened a coloured taxi driver. So he was sent to my excavation to be educated. And the funny thing is that the other day we had a visitor on the site, not to our excavation, but in general on the site. He was a black person, a young man. And my complete team was kind of, black man, what is he doing here in Flossenberg? And I said, I'm going to ask him when he comes back. And he said, well, I'm a GI, just finished here in Germany. I want to see the labour camps we freed. So that was his perspective on Flossenberg. It was absolutely flabbergasting for my team. Yes, yes. Yes, I'm just to give a short comment to what you said. People saying, I can't do the work you do. These sites are so horrible or something like that. I do not understand that and I'm arguing quite strict against it because the doors are open today. The doors are open. The gates are open. So when we go in a memorial, we can go inside and outside. Whenever we want, we can drink a coffee and so on. And I think everyone should do that. Yeah, yeah. Where would you draw your line where you would not excavate? In Flossenberg I said I would not continue if I found human remains, but obviously in Srebrenica archaeology is digging human remains. Where is your border or is there no border really? No, I have excavated human remains as well. And at one point when we had a project in Sachsenhausen, we found hair. And that was to me a strange moment. Yeah, yeah. Margaret, please, yeah, how does Claudia respond to the importance of the archaeological remains as testimony accepting that it can give rise to contested memories and contested association? That is a very, very important point. I think we should, how to say, allow these contested memories. I just said it briefly regarding the troubles in Ireland. There are many good narratives and these are contested memories. And I think in many parts of the world where we live, where we have democracy and so on, we should have the strength that we can live with contested memories. And not only one official memory. So that should be done in countries like Germany or Austria or the U.S. because it is not possible for example in Hungary or in many countries in southern America and so. But the other term or the other word contested associations or maybe you mean NGOs and all the relatives, that is also a very important thing. We should include them in our research. And it is quite clear that they sometimes have different opinions about it. But I would never put the archaeological research question over what the NGOs say. There is a huge rule that we should not do any anthropological examinations on Jewish human remains. I might have many questions for such questions but I would never do that. Can you maybe give an example of such a contested memory, contested association? Well, as I said for the Irish trouble, if you go to Northern Ireland you can clearly experience it there in Derry. In Derry there are two or three museums regarding the troubles and you see quite different narratives on these troubles. Or in the Spanish Civil War they still vivid a discussion in Spain about the Spanish Civil War or in Rwanda. So wherever conflicts are we can see these contested memories. These contested NGOs or the relatives sometimes say leave them alone, rest in peace there and others say no we want to have their forensic archaeological excavations we want to identify them and so on. So it is always a discussion, often a discussion. Marcus, very happy with your response. Thank you very much. Well, I can't see any questions coming up at the moment. Shall we call it a... Oh, here. Yes, and what you are saying... Well, the first word for it is more than only our connection with a bit more greater distance or bigger distance and there were some battlefields where soldiers from Australia were killed and Australian archaeologists came to Nova France and helped their digging and they were very keen to reburr these people in cemeteries for the killed soldiers. So archaeology or the people who then deal with it can also heal the history a bit. And the longer the distance the easier it becomes. And that is why I would like to say historical archaeology or contemporary archaeology is very important for today's society as well. Do you actually think that the pyramids somehow have a bit of a good role in that? I didn't understand. Sorry, a bit of an echo. Do you think Germans have a different approach to their history because they are much more accept that they committed a crime and they are more open to that? The German way of remembrance is sometimes seen as a... What is the forebild in English? Role model? Role model, thank you. Role model for remembrance, yes. And what Richard von Weizsäker said in 1984, 1985 that was really... After that it changed. So it's easier for me to say I was liberated than there was a defeat of the war. Yeah, it suddenly makes sense. It gives history a new idea about this. Wonderful. Well, thank you. Katka, can you find any more questions for us? If that is not the case, Claudia, thank you very much once more. There's a wonderful talk and a wonderful discussion and have a wonderful conference, you and all the others. And thank you very much for coming. Thank you very much and thanks to the audience. I cannot be, but I hope it was interesting for you. Thank you very much.