 Right now, we have a very interesting panel on European networks, six speakers to take the floor in 30 minutes, that's a big challenge for us. I think we will not complete right on time. Just before, as an introduction, I will very briefly, because all of us are a little bit tired and you will be probably exhausted after my presentations. We are going to provide you with a short introduction of European multiplier networks dedicated to teacher trainings, an experience that we lead and manage at Holocaust Memorial in Paris. So Holocaust Memorial in Paris is a French institution dedicated to the remembrance of the Holocaust and the study of other genocide, let's say so-called other genocide. I will try very briefly to address one of the fourth questions indicated in your working programme, how can we create an inclusive memory? According to us, it could be done by developing European multilateral networks, specialized on mass atrocities, with the Holocaust as a common basis and as an entry point, and of course with the support of Europe for citizen programmes. Why choosing the Holocaust as an entry point for speaking about mass atrocities in Europe? In terms of negative history, of course it's obvious because the mass border and the deportations happen in almost every country of Europe, at the exceptions of Denmark, Bulgaria and Occupy territories in Europe, but more important and its major evolutions in the historiography of the Holocaust, it's not anymore the Germans came, they killed and they left. Now, we consider the Holocaust as a European phenomena, without the commitment of various parts of populations on perpetrator, it would not have been possible, 200,000 of perpetrators in Germany is not enough to kill 6 million of Jews. So you have the case with France, you have the case of course with the responsibility of the French police into the deportations in Bulgaria for the deportation of the Macedonian Jews, in Romania with Yashi or with Odessa, the Germans has nothing to do with that. That's a real European phenomena, that's why we think it's a good idea to start with the Holocaust in order to understand all the genocides and mass atrocities in Europe and other genocides in the world. So, as I said, we show the Holocaust as starting point to understand the history of World War II and other genocides and mass atrocities, it's really an inclusive approach, it's not because you work on the Holocaust that you have to exclude the other suffering, it's exactly the opposite. So yes, we have to include these topics and we have to develop a comparative approach. For instance, Holocaust uniqueness, that's a very often question we have to deal with. According to us, it's not at all relevant. Every genocide or every mass atrocity is unique in itself. For instance, for the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda, you can see in the different facts that children are killings, other children are killing their mother, it happens. I never faced this with the Holocaust. So to say that one, you cannot compare to anything because it's unique, it's nonsense according to us and according to the Memorial de la Shoah. So you have to compare but in order to singularize and it will be the basis of this European multiplier networks to compare but to make the difference between various political phenomena. For what purpose, what is the philosophy, let's say philosophy beyond that? According to the French historian Henri Rousseau, history is what inform us on our presence. So we try to build strong links between historical backgrounds and contemporary issues and it's very important for instance in the case of Ukraine or in the case of Croatia, you cannot understand anything about the current situation in Ukraine or in Croatia is you don't have this historical background related to the genocide of the Jews but not only to the other genocides, genocides of the Serbs, you pay issue in Ukraine and so on. Where did we decide to implement this European multiplier networks and where major remembrance is you are at stake. Mainly the Balkan regions, Baltic countries, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, etc. and how with inclusive teacher training in partnership and it's very important. Basically you can organize of course a multilateral event in many occasions dedicated to the teacher training but without the participation of the Ministry of Education, it's really useless because there is no integration. It is very important, we deal with multilateral teacher trainings but on a regional basis. I don't believe in international trainings dedicated to the Holocaust and mass atrocities, I believe in really regional understanding of these facts. So what kind of event do we organize right now because it's ongoing process. So it's multilateral trainings on the region of former Yugoslavia with Bosnian Croatians and sub-teachers all together. The three Baltic states Macedonia and Greece, Hungary with Romanian teachers and Ukraine and Russia. For obvious reasons, I don't have to mention that. You know you understand what is behind the idea to impact the debate regarding the history of course and the contemporary issues. All these events related to this European network multipliers are organized on the spot. I mean not of course in Paris but in Riga, but in Skopje and in these cities. There is no point for us to invite 40, 30, I don't know how many teachers to Paris. There is much more impact to do it on the spot. The idea is to build up a common narrative on the Holocaust based on cross perspective in order to foster transnational dialogues on similar issues. You know how it is important for instance for Macedonia and Greece what happened after the war. And of course to take back from these national representations with the support of international expertise and local expertise. And I mentioned the case of France. What was the situation regarding the historiography of the Holocaust before the book published by Paxton and Maris in 74, as far as I remember. It was American experts who provided us with the first very important analysis of the responsibility of the Vichy regime. And of course all these trainings are dedicated to a scientific approach with the support of local historians to deconstruct false ideas. To make equalization between events, not understand the singularity of each of them. And I have in mind this kind of sorry but silly sentences like victims of victims. That's really you don't understand anything about the event with Israel and Palestine and you don't understand anything about the Holocaust. So use this sentence is really pointless to avoid any kind of trivialization simplifications and to understand all these very different mass atrocities and genocide. And to include with the local problematics, there is no one modern, there is no one pattern about the Holocaust or about genocide issues. If you deal with these networks, you have to speak what is relevant for them and what is really related to the local mass atrocities and the very sensitive issue like for instance, forced Soviet applications. If you're going to the Baltic states, if you don't deal with these issues, you miss the point. There is a strong rep or strong myth about the responsibility of the Jews with the first Soviet occupation. But you can deconstruct that with historical facts, historical approach. And that's what we are trying to do. And of course, include the local sufferings. The Stalinist crime is very important to recognize the crimes and to help them to identify you. And the racial prejudice because we try to mix scientific and historical issues with very contemporary challenges like anti-Semitism, anti-Gibsist, theory of the plot and racial prejudice. That's a common concern for all European teachers. I will stop my presentation with two study cases we are trying to implement. For instance, the case of Bosnia. You know that in Bosnia, you have less public ourselves and the federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are two ministries of education. They don't work together, obviously. And there are no real contact between the teachers. So we decided to organize two trainings dedicated to the mass atrocities in the regions in 2015 and 2016. Obviously, it was the first time that they met after almost 15 years. There is no contact between the two entities. So trying to build up altogether a narrative about the Holocaust. And from this, starting to have a global understanding about all the masquerades. And of course, if you are in Bosnia, if you don't speak about what happened with the Czechniks, with the partisans and with the ustasiu, you miss the whole point. The Jews and the history of the cause is one very important, but that's the starting point. And in another case, I will conclude with that. Sorry, I missed that. That's the Jewish, next to the Jewish cemetery close to Salajevo. This is the second training we organize. And this is a very good example. This is Drakulic. Drakulic has nothing to do with the genocide of the Jews. But how is it possible to speak about the genocide of the Jews? It denies the suffering of the Serbs. Drakulic, it happened in February 1942. In four hours, 2,500 children, women were killed by the ustasi. It was 70 perpetrators, 70 perpetrators were committed in four hours to kill. If Slevernica is a genocide, I don't know what is Drakulic. So, inclusive memory, it means speaking about that, starting with your locals, but going not to a Jewish killing site, but going to a Serb's killing sites. And the other example we had, it was last year, and we will carry on the work with Vesna Selic, who is over there from documentary, that's multilateral teacher trainings for Bosnian, Christian and Serb teachers. For the Serb teachers, it was the first time, after 20 years, that they came as a group to Yassinovac. So, this is the kind of reply we want to provide to the challenge of how to create an inclusive policy regarding memories. That's all for me. Now, I will leave the floor to the first speakers, if I can find my notes. So, I'm very bad moderators indeed. And Ralafele Olegulski, please, you are the head of the Institute of European Network Remembrance and Solidarity. Could you please introduce us with your network? Thank you very much. I would like to thank the organizers for inviting us. But I would like to thank you for being here and not the parks and streets of this beautiful city. I will try to tell you some information how the idea of supporting dialogue about the history of the 20th century European history have been realized. I'm sorry, I'm looking for the pilot. It could be useful. Okay, thank you. Ah, okay. So, I will, firstly, I will speak short about some historical informations about establishing of the UNRS, then some organizational and structure date, and then about some main projects, concrete projects. So, European Network Remembrance and Solidarity was created 2005 after the long discussion caused by the proposals from the German side, from the German politicians Erika Steinbach, to build in Berlin the center against expulsions. The idea based on the narrative about the expulsions, but there were no place for historical context and for the Second World War. So, it costs a great discussion in the middle European countries and after some years, the ministers of culture of four central European countries, Poland, Germany, Hungary and Slovakia, acknowledged the need for dialogue on 20th century history and they established the European Network for joint research documentation and dissemination of the contemporary European history. 2014, Romania joined the network and 2015, Albania became the observer status. So now, these are the members of the network and the state which have observer status, this is the Czech Republic, Austria, Albania and Latvia. Short about our organization, we have a steering committee, as a decision making body in this committee are appointed the coordinators who are appointed by the ministries of culture of member countries and the steering committee makes decisions regarding the NRS strategy and projects. We have also two advisory bodies, advisory board and academic council. Together, all together, these are 24 members in these assemblies. Our strategic partners are the ministries of culture in every member countries and some institutions are connected with the ministries but we cooperated with more than 100 institutions in the whole of Europe and not only in Europe. The headquarter of the network, the secretariat, is located in Warsaw and as you said is the name of the Institute of the European Network of Remembrance and Solidarity. We have also a non-public entity, the foundation for some foundational reasons. So these are the partners of the network where they are located now. Between 2010 and 2016, we realized our projects with more than 100 partners in Europe, USA and Israel too. The main activities of the network are concentrated on three areas. The first one is research, the second one is education and dissemination of knowledge and the third one is network. During the last six years, we organized more than 120 projects, as I said. And these are the main projects of the network. Some of them are, I hope, recognizable and some of them are implemented in cyclical editions because we are sure that this cycle is necessary to gain better contact between Europeans and between Europeans institutions which are dealing with 20th century history. Our main project, European Remembrance Symposium, we organized once a year such meeting of the institutions which are dealing with the 20th century history. We initiated this project in 2012 in Gdańsk, then was Berlin, then Prague, together with the European Commission, then Vienna and last week we met in Budapest. In Budapest, we had more than 300 participants from more than 30 countries and it was the similar situation in Prague and in Vienna. So the need to meet and to discuss is there. The key objectives of this project are to stimulate and intensify international cooperation among institutions and organizations, operating in the field of research on the 20th century European history and historical education. Such symposiums are the possibility to meet the politicians with the academics and with the representatives of the public and not public institutions which are dealing with the history. Here you see the former president of Austria, Heinz Fischer, who opened our symposium last year. There is the place during the symposium not only to hear high-level speeches and discussions, but to be confronted with the memorization, memory places in the country where we are. Here's the picture from Vienna, from such trip through memory places in Vienna. And there is the place in program for short presentation, turbo presentation of the projects or institutions. The next big project made by European Network, it was Campaign Freedom Express. It was a social educational campaign initiated in 2014 to commemorate the events of 1989, but in the young team with 1939. So it was the most extensive among our projects, realized with 30 partners in some European countries. The project involved study trip of an international group of young people following the events of the period between 1939 and 1989. They started in Gdańsk and they ended in Berlin. Then an open-air exhibition rose to 1989 East Central Europe between the years 1939 and 1989. And then documentary film and activities on the internet including website, blog, and Facebook profile. Here's some photographs from the trip. Here is the exhibition. The exhibition was shown in many places. We started in Berlin. Then Brussels as you see in front of the European Parliament. Then Warsaw, Budapest, Vienna, Bucharest, Bratislava. And this year we will show the exhibition in Krakow and in Prague. And the last stop it will be in Wroclaw. So the next project called In-Between. This is the initiative targets students and young professionals aged between 18 and 25 from European countries. The aim of the project is to improve their knowledge on historical process in 20th century, East Central Europe. In 2016 it has two editions, Spring and it will be in autumn the second one, each compressing residential workshops in Warsaw and then the study visits in four border regions of Europe. The spring edition was Bukowina, Le Busse Land, Banskabist, Szitza, and Transylvania. The autumn edition will be Austria and Slovenian border land, Czech, German, Polish border land, Hungarian Croatian border land, and Slovak, Ukrainian, Hungarian border land. This project is supported by the European Commission with the program Europe for Citizens. The next project is high story lessons. This is a teaching and learning about the 20th century of European history. We will present through this project an international page dedicated to historical education in Central Eastern European countries. The website will be divided into models for teachers from pupils from secondary schools and all other users of the internet. It will contain lessons, scenarios, infographics, articles, animations, videos, and interactive maps. So the last project, almost last project about which I won't tell some words, this is an action. Remember January 27 and International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and we produced a short animated film entitled Memento, directed by the Hungarian author Zoltán Szilagyi Varga. Please present the film. It is 30 seconds. This film was shown in more than 20 TV channels this year. And the last project, Remember August 23, the European Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Stalinism and Natism. This is the campaign which we launched in 2013, and the aim is to inform about the 23rd August Hitler-Stalin pact as a symbolic moment in the history of the Europeans. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed, Raphael. The next speaker is Nicola Marti. Nicola Marti is a researcher at the University of Perpignan. He is the head of the MEPHRO project, dedicated to European remembrance related to borders. And he will introduce us to this new project, if I'm not really new. Yes. Well, we are in trouble with the timing, so I will try to tell you in a few words. Well, first, I don't know. I have no possibility of... Anyway, I had a problem, but... No. I like to maintain, but no. Anyway, it's not a problem. Well, I have to present a project funded by Europe for citizens. It's a project on European borders, memory, how to tell you. Oh, yes, thank you. Wonderful. The memories of European borders and MEPHRO. We quickly, the background, we worked with Euroma and the Foundation of the University of Barcelona to develop a network working on the concept of cultural memory of the French-Spanish border in the beginning. And for a few months, we developed a project to go beyond the French-Spanish border and to give a more European dimension and it became the memories of European borders. In the field of remembrance, with free area, transdisciplinary, transnational and multicultural approaches, our main goal, I will go quite quickly, if you want, excuse me, for the sound. Okay, I stop it, definitely. Well, our goal is to do research and analysis of social and physical remembrance and research in the context, in the specific context of borders of European borders, region. And we are trying to do transfer and sharing of knowledge, building a permanent interdisciplinary transnational network in order to promote social awareness of the use of the past. We are doing, thank you, you are the relevant person to do this. Yes, okay, this one, okay. Our partner quickly, because it's important. We have University of Tallinn, Estonia, Lubiana, Slovenia, Taragona and the University of Perpignan, also, sorry. Institution of memory, like Rosetto Historical Institute of Resistance at the Museu de la Passe de Garnica, Nachbach, Schafthaus, Berlin and Rome, of course, and an association of social citizens, trajectory we work in the field of educational and secondary education and to connect French and German actors in this field. Well, our activities are to organize international seminars. I give you some examples, first, organized by Museu de la Passe and Mifro in Garnica around the process of reconstruction after the war in Spain and Europe and over one. Okay, last month in Taragona, upon the relationship between history, memory and political borders and memorial tourism and education, well, and we have, of course, projects, activities, but I will not develop this one. We try to work with all of the partner and in different countries. The organizer told us to put a lot of quick remarks about advantages, difficulties, weakness and networking. It was important, so I will give you a few remarks. I think that the advantages are very important. First, to explore the potential of cross-national comparative experience that can transmit social knowledge and know how it's very important. Second, to breaking with material and conceptual boundaries in European countries, in different European countries. It's important in a broader context. We try to, in another advantage, we try to generate a methodological resource for management of European cultural heritage and we try to do a contribution for creation of space of analyze and discussion, a common space of debate between a lot of multiplicity of actors. We try to do it. Okay, this was the sunny side of the street and if we go to the dark side, I guess we have difficulties. The first difficulty, as you see, I am a scholar and it's a very comfortable job. As an historian, I have to go to archives to read some books or papers or to write a book or papers and well, it's finished and I can speak to students and oh, well done, Nikola, you have to write a book. Let's go to archives. Thank you, very, very interesting job. But in the field of history and memory, it's not so comfortable because I reuse an expression of an intervention this morning. Now, we have to deal with common people. We have to work with all the academic fields, all the institutions. We have to work with civil society, with politicians on local or regional or national level and it's very complicated, very complicated. So the role of politicians on the local or regional level is a key role and it's very complicated to work. We have another problem and it's a problem. We just talked about this morning and this afternoon, the saturation of memories. We will probably just talk about this. I think that networking, working with networks in a new European framework offers a huge possibility to avoid these kind of difficulties. The challenge very quickly. In my point of view, the most important challenge is the young public. We have to build new generation of citizens but we have to build a new generation of professional, of cultural tourism, remembrance tourism and heritage. This is very important in the field of tourism, of remembrance tourism, of the specialization of heritage. All these professionals have to be aware of all the issues of these kind of things. Conclusion, just another challenge is we saw it in the south of France with European and non-European memories, how to organize themselves. I think that the memory of French Algerian who came in France and Algerian who fought during the decolonization with the French army and came in France before the war, all these kinds of memories are quite challenging. I think that networking is a solution to construct, to build a civic education territorial development too by the tourism and development and I think to build the future of our Europe. Thank you very much. Sorry. Thank you very much, Nicolas, for this very innovating project. Now we are not going to talk about an already implemented project but a coming project, really important, dedicated to the museum of fascism in our scholars, as far as I remember and for that I will give the floor to Marcello Flores. Marcello teaches history and history of human rights at the University of Siena is one of the most prominent historians regarding genocide studies in Italy and I'm very pleased to give him the floor right now. Today I think that we see in Europe a sort of sometimes of fear of memory and especially of history. This morning Elin spoke of Eastern, Western, divided and divided memories but the memories are often divided and divided also within each county since a few months is going on in Italy a heated historical debate. The occasion was the decision of the measure of Freda Pio to build a museum of fascism and the study center in the city was embursed to Mussolini and that now houses his tomb a place of pilgrimage at least three times a year with clear manifestations of pro-fascist propaganda. The place where it should be built the museum is the home of fascism that we see here a large building in fascist style in a huge square in front of the church. The goal of the measure, in Freda Pio the measure has always been of left or center left in the after world period is to terminate this liturgy of nostalgia and use its own story to promote historical knowledge and a reflection on fascism. Historians are often divided when it comes to come out and to decide how to regulate the past in the present and what should be the story publicly disseminated in the police. What vision of the past must be fostered to guide the collective memory which is also the role of the historian to do it while it's certainly the civic duty of the public historian to interact in the public sphere about the past even more uncomfortable. A large group of historians endorse the measure project and immediately they have been the subject of fierce criticism from other historians and anti-fascist association. These controversies have grown up before all the people knew how will be set up the museum. The main objection is that the place already a living symbol of neo-fascist cannot but pollute the museum which could become a further homage to fascism and Mussolini. The symbolic power of the place which has been in the last 50 years can only reverberate negatively on the museum. The local cultural association on the contrary including the anti-fascist have expressed their desire to live the past in a different way than the neo-fascist have celebrated ever since in 1957. Mussolini's corpse was accepted into the family Mausoleum in the local cemetery. Help to make known the history of fashion can become an opportunity for Predapio to shake off the definition of city of Duce and become an opportunity for knowledge of the past and history of the equation. The museum opponents also argue that such an enterprise should be created or in Rome or Milan just to give a national character to the museum which could not have hand in Predapio. For them it is very difficult if not impossible to deconstruct or neutralize a space that has become the eyes of fascist, neo-fascist and nostalgic aura of a sacred place and it seems necessary to ask if one day we would like to bring there on a visit to the future of fascist national museum schools, groups from all over Italy to explain to the promoters of the museum of Predapio that the place have a symbolic weight that cannot be raised they suggested to build the museum of fascism in another small town in Emilia-Romagna that is in Fossoli little town near Carpi, Modena that houses the remains of the main transit camp for Italian Jews deported from there to Auschwitz run by Italians until February 1944 and later mainly by Germans. The museum oponents assumes that it is impossible to change the statute that Predapio has acquired over the decades which must necessarily remain a hostage of the pilgrimage of irredecible nostalgic and so it's good to let that be a secret forever. But it is against the mythological arraying of the fascist past that prevails in Predapio where the history of the Romania communities was dropped to make room for the sale of fascist memorabilia and objects for nostalgic fascist that the public historian must be able to intervene to create an open museum in the region thanks to new network technologies it is not only good for the profession of historians as such but the necessity of local communities as well the only way to prevent Mr. Everiman in our nostalgic Salaw men to impose a monopoly of the story or rather their anti-historical fables in the territory of Predapio. The general impression we get from the discussion is that there is still by those opposite to the museum a fear of speaking public of fascism through a narrative that must speak to who knows nothing or not little. It is the fear that any ignorance of the public make prevail dangerous interpretation of fascism or limited or wrong or partial. Certainly every museum even the most beautiful have a narrative and partial interpretation and we cannot find all in it. Generally we should evaluate, criticize, propose improve them when they are built not preventing its construction maybe we should listen to many teachers who would like to find a place to help them to cope with a period of history that remains difficult because increasingly under the scrutiny of parents public institution etc who tend not to trust the cultural and scientific teachers. Personally I do not accept this kind of censorship again a such historical complex and tragic era and I think that a way to overcome doubts and difficulties is to put this project which will be done anyway and so it is better to do it well in a network of history and memory of the 20th century and become part of a collective research education, popular spread of a narrative at the same time scientific and simple, charming and thoughtful. The idea of moving the museum of fascism in a place so deeply characterised by the victims of its policy falsely has not even the value of a provocation. It is not a symbolic compensation on one memory that can afford to grow ornest of history and moral especially young people just because now it is the fact that the memory of the victims is an essential and indispensable point of every historical reconstruction. We must also emphasise that the critical and modern consciousness cannot be based only on it but it must be based on the complexity of history. It's multiple contradictory aspects the only ones who can afford to understand what happened and to draw therefore direction political, moral, cultural for the present. The network of the European observatory I think can help us in working positively and give answer to the construction of the future museum of fascism in Predapio. Thank you. Thank you very much Marcello. Very important project indeed. Now I will give the floor to Ophelia Leon. Ophelia is a historian and a curator and she is a chair also of ICMEMO. ICMEMO is very important in term of networking for museums, organisations. Could you tell us a little bit more about that? ICMEMO is the international committee of memorial museums in remembrance of the victims of public crimes. It's a network of about 150 or so memorials and museums which is part of a larger much larger network of museums worldwide. ICOM is the international council of museums and that's 35,000 members all over the world. Primarily museums but that encompasses all kinds of historians, researchers and people working in the field. There's international committees ICMEMO is one of them and international committees are basically the think tanks that will provide best practices, research and ideas for ICOM to implement or to... ICOM itself was an initiative of UNESCO so it's primary in terms of both ICMEMO and ICOM its primary goal is promoting peace through cultural dialogue, cooperation, knowledge and so everything that we've been talking about here for two days as a matter of fact some is a member of ICMEMO and it was the site of one of the conferences 2012 for ICMEMO but basically everything that's being discussed here are the things that we're dealing with with ICMEMO and we invite you to find out more you can come to me and I'll send you information but it is in everybody's best interest basically to be a member of ICMEMO it's a membership base or a subsidy you don't... it's not an automatic membership so you apply and then you're either accepted or not but being as you are dealing with memory as all of the institutions here and individual researchers and academics are dealing with that would be no problem there's benefits, personal benefits you could travel all over the world you have free entry to museums so that's a plus, aside from being able to foster that cooperation that network that Nikola was saying is so important in building this historical memory so if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask me later Jordi, you can always turn to him also he's vice chair of ICMEMO you don't know how to get in contact with us or through the website that we're looking at now as well the memorial for the memory of the show Bruno so we invite you to please come and join us and this year will be Milan, Marcello, his institute Inslee, Casa de la Memoria will be host as well every ICMEMO has its conference every year and as Pavel was saying every year it's at a different country and a different host museum this year in particular it's a triennial so which means that it's not just the ICMEMO community that gets together but we're part of a larger conference which is a seven day conference that's taking place in Milan from the 3rd to the 9th of July and there isn't a single issue or a single person that has spoken here today yesterday and even the day before with the concert and evoking Walter Benjamin through the Walter Benjamin Memorial etc. that wouldn't profit from coming to Milan this July the issues that would be discussed some of the sessions for example for ICMEMO is dark tourism which Yordi from Memo evoked in terms of the banalization of tourism when you're dealing with memory sites for example other issues that have been discussed here which will be the subject of one of the sessions which is with the University of Exeter what is that the hold on I'll tell you exactly some of you may know Nelly Berkus from the University of Exeter or Groyo Badescu from Oxford University could be colleagues of yours working on the issue and so this session will be memory of dictatorships in Latin America Eastern Europe and post-Soviet states these are all the issues that will be dealing with in Milan and we welcome you to join us next thank you very much I can just confirm as a member of ICMEMO that this really about networking and it's really useful for institutions like me because we deal with other institutions with the same specialties and thanks to ICMEMO we open the scope to other memorials dealing with other issues so it's very very interesting to be part of this network so now the floor is to Alma Masic Alma is an expert about civil society development and democracy issues in the Balkan region and especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina floor is yours thank you I'm here on the behalf of something that we call memory lab that's also another network very informal very started out of the idea and wish to kind of connect people from the western Balkan western Europe and the Balkan regions in order to exchange their experience, knowledge and also to see the possibilities of the is it working? something, nothing never mind it really starts as one small initiative of the group of the historians from the Germany there is go what do I press? which one? so this is the context it started from the very small meeting of the historians and people from memorialization centers and museums from particularly Germany and France in order to exchange experience between post-Yugoslav countries and it's also the aim to promote mutual learning dialogue exchange and constructive critical assessment and I'm going to explain just free step of how this is designed it's a network of the memory lab partners from the south Europe and western Europe and as you can see we do it always bilingually and this is a some list of the partners that we have in our network, it's a memorials in museums such as like Yasenovac from Croatia and Dona Gradina from Bosnia, historical museum Max Mannheim and center Dahau the historial, the great war Peron or Gadoor and Anna Frankhaus Amsterdam and many more but there is also this civil society organizations and NGOs that are working on this issue such as an organization that I'm coming from which is one of the establishers of the memory lab it's a youth initiative for human rights from Bosnia and Herzegovina but also Croatia and Serbia Forum CFD from Germany Institute of Applied History from Croatia Balkan investigative reporting network and many many more so anyone who works on the issues of the dealing with the past and memorialization are really free to come and join our network so our work is composed of the network of the memory lab partners and they are meeting once in a year and annual study trip and workshop started very small as I said as a conscious two days meeting in Sarajevo to really discuss possible exchange of the knowledge experience and information for that time we just did one small memory walk through Sarajevo trying to explain to people from the outside how the hundred years of the history of one city complement to each other from the first world war of the 90s then we continue because people really showed a lot of interest and we were growing bigger and bigger every year and then trying to do every year a study trip and a workshop in a different country so that next year we were to combine Croatia Bosnia and Herzegovina again then we went to France then it's to Germany and also with the visit to Poland we did the combined visit of Kosovo and Macedonia last year we were in Belgium and for this year we are planning to visit Serbia so now we're trying to do one year in the western Europe one year in the southeast in Europe and this is some of the things that we visited and Skopje for instance is always interesting now as an anti-memorial place of everything so this is the places that we visited and most of our partners and members are coming from and again the third layer and I think that it's the most important and most interesting part is a bilateral and multilateral project established through the form of memory lab partners one of them is definitely memory walk that we did in the Sarajevo and east Sarajevo from the students and I'm just going to stop here and tell you something very important also for your project another Clio project this project is built up and it was next year was done with the young people of Munich Germany now we are accompanying the Anna Frank exhibition and traveling throughout the entire region but very special I want to emphasize and focus on many many cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina together with that we also organized peer-to-peer training and education for teachers as a result of that the methodology of the memory walk has been recommended by the agency of education of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the method of the history teaching in all schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina we are very proud of that and it's just an example how the memory lab was a platform for the two organizations to meet and create now something what is a great legacy and for the first time great success to have one methodology for all schools of Bosnia and Herzegovina and you heard it several times today how the education is this is some other joint projects that we are doing in cooperation with you Croatia historical museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina et cetera and now the very one project that we are very proud of is also memory lab junior that we are doing with the youngsters and this one is finishing this year in France and I really have to publicly thank to Jordi Fond but yeah he's not here for also kindly offering to host as his portable and also to visit Mume and Walter Benjamin museum and to somehow extend our visit also from France because we are going to be even in river Salts and Perpignan just to extend it also to Catalonia and to see other places here so this is a sum of that we are doing extensive evaluation every year and we really want to hear participants opinion and this is the one of them what it says that they are really kind of eye opening of experience and we really did everything out of the sleeping in the concentration camps in Ravensbruck and visiting all this really heartbreaking things was really very valuable for any of our participants we are operating small funds never receive anything from european for citizens because again we are informal we are working with the funds from CCFD ofage French chairman youth office Robert Bosch foundation King Boudon so it's like the foundations that really give you a flexibility in your program and that you really can do a lot of things and again this is our website and right now we are currently updating and putting more of the profiles about our members and again memory lap is open to everyone we just opened the process of the new applications for the study trip and annual meeting in Serbia so it's open by the June 15 and everybody is really welcome to join us because we really want to have up to 40 participants every year but that every year we have some newcomers new experience, new knowledge that we really like to share thank you very much as additional information I just want to mention that Bosnia and Herzegovina decided to integrate another network very important network that's IRA international Olocos remembrance alliance that's why they decided to implement an official curriculum dedicated to the Olocos recently thank you very much it was really impressive work done by memory lab the last presentation with Kostis Karpuzilos sorry for the presentation is the director of contemporary social history archives and he will introduce us with a new kind of good practice dedicated I'm not sure if I'll manage to do that but I definitely want to thank the organizers for this invitation I'm a bit of an outsider to this discussion as I'm a historian and it's now only now that I've become the director of the contemporary social history archives and I will try to I will make a couple of comments on the experience on working on issues of memory in Greece in the current situation a situation defined by the crisis how our institution the contemporary social history archives have been handling with this and at the end I will try to challenge this idea that history is a progressive force and lessons from history have a linear outcome in a better future I have to say that I believe in the broad concept of memory wars and memory debate that the right of the citizen is to be insulted and to be exposed to ideas, concepts, memories that go against his personal belief system and against his identity or how he has been shaped over these years I'm afraid that we are entering a period after 1989 especially of sanitized memory of institutionalized memory of laws that define which memory is legal and ascribes to dominant narratives are excluded once again this time not under the totalitarian ideologies but this time under the freedom of political liberalism well Greece is a society as you all know in crisis as we can all agree it's a commonplace that nations in times of crisis tend to history as a point of aspiration this has happened in Greece since 2008 there is unprecedented interest for history but this interest has two dimensions the one is exclusionary that it is us the Greek nation against the others and I think we are all aware of how history has been instrumentalized in the Greek-German debate on the future of Europe and the second issue and I think the discussion about fascism in Italy has some similarities here is a division of competing versions of history within its given society the main issues of conflict in Greece just to remain the 20th century is 1922 the successful but traumatic exchange of one million refugees from Asia Minor to Greece and the expulsion of a similar number of Muslim Ottoman former subjects to the new Turkish state a successful handling of the minority question that has left though a very traumatic legacy social setting the 1940s as you can all know the similarities here with the Spanish question are evident in Greece we have the paradox of the anti-communist state incorporating collaboration with the Germans given the predominance of the common fight against the communist peril so it is a paradoxical situation where those who collaborated during the occupation years were accepted and reintegrated to an extent in the dominant Greek narrative and the final episode and once again here are similarities across the European south is 1974 and the transition to democracy so what in this situation we have three pivotal moments of the 20th century that create divisions cultural wars memory wars that are evident in everyday life in the political landscape what is the role of a small not very small institution like the contemporary social history archives we mainly operate as an archival institution that has strongholds is the collections of the Greek left but at the same time we operate as a research institute trying to influence the public debate which writes to address this renewed interest in history by resorting I guess to the usual tactics practices that we all more or less serve educational activities memory walks historical tours in Athens in other cities launching of exhibitions and here you can see I mean these are archives a very traditional archive with social struggles of the 1940s and here is the result when you organize a historical tour in Athens devoted to the industrial remains in the working class districts you have hundreds of people showing up this is same as spontaneous but this illustrates I think the dynamics of history in this particular setting of crisis the rest of the practices so weekly radio hour on a national broadcast national wide radio station exhibitions we go to various neighborhoods and set up a table very spontaneous and at the same time very traditional ideas practices one I think if I had to remain very conventional I would say that the main challenge to these activities is that the dominant narratives that still are entrenched in a nationalist and anti-communist rhetoric those that are trying to in a way create a division between Greeks and non-Greeks between those that serve the interests of the Greek nation and those like us who in a way are the disguised children of the 1940s and we are trying to revise Greek history in order to impose our internationalist dreams or other conspiracy theories that are very prevalent and dominant in Greece I am afraid though that this is not the main challenge when it comes to memory the main challenge I think is how this awareness about history this awareness about memory informs a certain conceptualization of memory a certain conceptualization of how history matters and in the Greek setting in my opinion we have experienced two main currents the first is the idea of the eternal repetition of history and memory there plays a very important role so historical analogies what's happening today in Greece is a repetition of what happened in the 1940s and you can make the analogy yourself what's happening today in Greece is a repetition of what happened and this creates a whole stream of analysis that uses memory as a way to address certain political questions of today the second problem and possibly the most difficult to address is the idea that history is a lesson the idea that history offers an example a definite example of how we are going to address the present and the future this idea of history being a lesson is problematic or we have to problematize it because it limits our political imagination it creates history becomes a conservative force the history of the 20th century of a nation like Greece of a society like the Greek one becomes a conservative force that at the end of the day has this simple credo that any challenge to the established status quo will lead to a catastrophe either it's a national catastrophe like the 1922 exchange of population or a catastrophe like the greek civil war or the catastrophe of the greek junta in 1967 and the problems of authoritarianism this idea of memories operating as a conservative narrative I think is something that we should acknowledge at least and try to be in dialogue with it it's a paradox I think for all these institutions that at the same time we address the issue of memory we want to emphasize the necessity of memories and the plurality of memories and at the same time we possibly see the limitations of how memory entraps political imagination if the future is defined by the past then the lesson of the past is that any alternative to the past for a different social and political order will lead to totalitarian regime will lead to national catastrophes I think yesterday the keynote speaker was in a way reproducing this idea we should defend the Weimar Republic because any alternative to that will lead either to Nazis or as he mentioned Bolshevism what is the way forward we have to engage in present debates and try to entangle there the past creating a transnational network with tangible deliverables I think is the common place I mean no one will disagree in this there are two additional points and I'll finish with those the first is about participation participatory dimension of memory projects sometimes I think we imply that we the institutions will create space for people to come and be educated to our understanding of memory I think we have to reverse this and create space to listen of how to every individual in every society how he understands or she understands historical experience and I think every family every individual at the end of the day has a multiple archive a very expensive archive of personal history family history and archives the ones that we should be addressing and the ones that we want to bring to the forefront this might not conform to our idea of history this might challenge our certainties but if it's going to be participatory then it is necessary to address what people actually think about history and I think if you go on facebook there are all these you know makeshift history memory sites my village I'll post photographs from the 30s this has nothing to do with the academic prerequisites of such a discussion but this illustrates that participation is there it is our problem as academics and as institutions to accept this as part of the debate and if we're looking for a tangible project of a project that can connect European memories and the common denominator a positive denominator if it's not war and catastrophe and the challenges to liberalism I think a topic that can revolutionize our understanding and at the same time bring people in the forefront of this discussion is the population movement and many of the participants have illustrated this Europe is a continent defined by the movement of populations by immigration by expulsion by the move that has transformed and revolutionized the understanding of what it means to be European this has nothing to do with east and west south and north this has to do with histories marginalized histories of labor oppression exploitation often struggle and dialogue thank you thank you very much Costis I personally fully agree with you regarding the comments about didactic sentences like history or lessons I will hard personally another one for instance never again it shall not be repeat you often listen this kind of sentences which doesn't mean anything it has already happened I'm thinking about of course the genocide of the Turkey and the last time when I heard this sentence never again it was in and it was a speech of the prime minister of Turkey never this have to be repeated again without of course mentioning that the fact that Turkey is responsible for the genocide of the Armenians so we shall be very careful with these didactic approaches just for the audience but without any impact so we have time for the questions before the concluding comments we have very different projects research project educational projects and memory projects so the floor is yours for comments and questions if not let's have a drink we've been so clear and they got it all no question this is the question to you because actually all the presentations were very interesting but my question is I'm a journalist myself what are you doing to reach out the population not just these small groups of people or not so young people who you involve into your projects who you bring to the sites but it's the minimum impact so what kind of intersection where is journalism and to reach out more population so you are trying to do it was just a presentation of one of our project and of course memory of the adbashem for instance deal with implementing activities dedicated to policymakers educational policymakers and journalists we have other seminars dedicated to this very specific audience but in terms of European networks for the moment it is only dedicated to the teachers and what is very important what is going next that's the reason why we decided to work in very close partnership with the ministry of education because if you want something happen in terms of curriculum in terms of teacher training reproducing and multiplying you have to take them involved into this organization and into this process that's very important so it's not just an NGO going abroad and saying fantastic we are going to speak about genocide and mass atrocities no we want to speak about very sensitive issues but in partnership with the public authorities without the public authorities I'm talking only about Europe because I don't deal with the public authorities in Turkey of course I work only with NGOs but for results you need of course the involvement and the commitment of the public authorities for better impact and for all those professional area we have but we don't have time to speak about it I think no more questions or other time for the concluding comments thank you very much for all the speakers