Remembrance and Memorials
Task Force Resolution, 13 June 2007
Recognizing the present and future importance to education, remembrance, and research of the physical locations where historical events occurred, the member countries agree to research, identify, and map the historic sites in their countries related to the Holocaust. Member countries should strive to mark such sites, to preserve them, and to prevent their misuse. Local communities and youth should be encouraged to engage in these processes.
The Memorial and Museums Working Group (MMWG) forms one of the three focal points of the ITF. Its role is to emphasise the issue of remembrance as one of the overall aims of the ITF.
The work of the MMWG is focused on forms of cultural remembrance that seek to anchor the Holocaust in the collective memory of contemporary and future societies. Particular importance is attached to memorials at historic sites of the Holocaust, memorial museums as "cultural sites" of memory and remembrance, and the implementation and form of national Holocaust remembrance days.
The principal purpose of the MMWG is to help the Task Force mobilise support and expertise for memorials at historic sites of the Holocaust and related sites of memory and commemoration (memorial museums, monuments), in keeping with the Stockholm Declaration.
The MMWG is charged with collecting and providing information on memorial museums and memorial sites, as well as on the education programmes currently on offer at memorials and museums in the member states of the ITF. Every member country is obliged to have a delegate represented at the MMWG.
As well as their professional competence and experience in the field of memorial sites, museums and memory culture, members of the MMWG can provide in-depth knowledge of the history of and recent forms and trends in Holocaust remembrance in their individual states.
The stated aims of the MMWG are to:
- collect information on memorials, memorial museums and Holocaust remembrance days and to establish databases as a foundation for this work
- explore how the preservation of memorials may be ensured in perpetuity
- promote communication and exchange between memorial sites and museums
- encourage the use of memorial sites and institutions for professional engagement, training and development
- encourage reflection on the relationship between memorial sites and the culture of commemoration
- make recommendations to the Task Force on how governments and institutions should direct their attention on major issues concerning the preservation of existing Holocaust memorials, as well as to sites that are not yet marked
- support and assist activities concerning memorials at the request of other working groups - especially on the issue of educational programmes at memorial sites - and support liaison projects
- support and assist activities involved in the organisation of Holocaust remembrance days.
The presentation and discussion of projects concerning memorials, memorial museums and activities in Holocaust remembrance - in particular the conception of new exhibitions, questions of preservation, educational programmes and the erection of monuments - forms the main part of the work at the meetings of the MMWG.
At recent meetings, initiatives were set up to strengthen communication between the ITF Working Groups; for example the MMWG and the EWG organised a joint meeting at the Linz Plenary in 2008, where representatives of memorials and Jewish museums in Austria presented information about their educational programmes.
As with the Academic and Education Working Groups, central to the work of the MMWG is reviewing and discussing Project Proposal Applications (PPAs). Although not exclusively, the MMWG aims to support projects that deliver lasting memorials in countries facing severe financial constraints.
Websites "Memorial Museums" and "Cultures of Remembrance"
One of the MMWG's key achievements has been the development of two websites created by the Topography of Terror Foundation (Berlin) with the support of the MMWG. The website "Cultures of Remembrance - a Network" provides a basis for a dialogue across borders about different kinds of remembrance and commemoration. Brief overview texts accompanied by scholarly essays present the cultures of remembrance in many different countries, especially the ITF member states.
The website can be found at www.cultures-of-remembrance.net/WebObjects/WN.woa/wa/Commemoration
The website "Memorial Museums" provides a worldwide overview of the most important memorials, monuments, museums and institutions that commemorate the victims of National Socialist terror. The site includes data on museums and research and educational institutions that conduct work in this historical field. It also presents brief historical information and a description of the activities of each institution, directions on how to reach the sites as well as contact addresses.
The web address is www.memorial-museums.net/WebObjects/ITF
Through these websites the different historical contexts and the development and reception of the sites of memory become evident. They show the connections between remembrance cultures and the development of memorial sites in the respective countries.
Holocaust Memorial Day
Over the last few years, January 27th, the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, has become established internationally as a Holocaust Memorial Day. In many of the ITF member states this day has been designated as a national remembrance day. One of the MMWG's sub-committees has responsibility for Holocaust remembrance days. This sub-committee provides information on the ceremonies, educational programmes and the different dates of national Holocaust remembrance days in each of the member states. This information is based on a survey of the activities of the ITF member states collected through a Holocaust remembrance day questionnaire. This documentation enables international comparison and exchange about the forms of remembrance on this day at an official level (state commemorations), in educational programmes (in schools) and in civil society (the activities of NGOs). Through comparison and examples of "best practices", the aim is to encourage remembrance initiatives in each country, in particular with regard to involving a wider public and young people in Holocaust remembrance.
Through the MMWG's work, a unique international network has been established in recent years that not only exchanges information, expertise and experience of the cultures of remembrance and of memory work in Memorials and Memorial museums in ITF member states, but also makes this information accessible for educational projects and remembrance work.
Main focus of future work of the MMWG
The main focus of future work will be on strengthening networks within the ITF Working Groups and the national delegations, and on utilising the expertise of the MMWG members for work at memorial sites. The data collected by the MMWG on the organisational structure of memorials and museums, on the form of educational departments and programmes at memorial sites and memorial museums and on Holocaust remembrance days can be used to facilitate international comparison and orientation toward best practices in the field of Holocaust remembrance.
This expertise of the MMWG - a unique international network of academic scholars and experts from memorials and museums in the member states - should be drawn on even more in the future to further the aims of the ITF. These include increasing implementation of the memory of the Holocaust in social cultures of remembrance, strengthening international cooperation between memorials and memorial museums in the member states (and beyond) and integrating the MMWG and the ITF into the academic network in the field of Holocaust-related memory studies.
The new questions which arise from concrete work at the historic sites of Nazi crimes against humanity - for example, the preservation and renovation of buildings and objects, the design of memorial sites and exhibitions, the integration of the site into educational programmes - will also open up new perspectives and provide new impulses for academic research into the historical sites of the Holocaust.
This may also support one of the main tasks of the MMWG: to support and advise governments on the implementation of policies related to Holocaust remembrance and to give incentives to innovative projects within the field.
