In Germany and East Central Europe after 1989 the remembrance of major historical events at grassroots level has gained tremendous momentum through local initiatives that have facilitated international encounters between various groups. In the project "Remembrance and Civil Society after 1989", funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, two studies examine this development in Hoyerswerda (Dr. K. Erik Franzen) and Ústí nad Labem/Aussig (Frauke Wetzel).

After World War II and under socialism both industrial cities were sites of forced migration and settlement on a massive scale. Both were also subject to a re-organization of society and political instrumentalization as exemplary socialist cities. After 1989 these processes were reversed at many different levels, and, in the context of political and social transformation, the basis for public remembrance also changed. In the former future-oriented socialist spaces people began to search for long suppressed memories in a process that is still ongoing. Various memories vie with each other in this search: Jewish persecution, World War II,   expulsion, and oppression under socialism.

This development gives rise to several questions: Do structural changes and reconstruction projects in both cities also reveal changes in memory politics that go beyond the mere re-naming of streets and squares? What role do the memories of World War II and forced migration and settlement play in these former socialist industrial centres? Is it normal for a phase of strictly regulated remembrance to be followed by a phase of “de-regulation”, in which formerly suppressed memories seek an outlet? And can we observe a shift in focus to “memory work” and the activities of civil society actors? This project seeks answers to these questions by enriching municipal history, which has tended to focus on geography, sociology, and urban development, with the perspective of historical culture.

Workshop 2011. More...

K. Erik Franzen