The Second World War in the New Millennium - Instytut Pileckiego

The presentation of Professor Arnd Bauerkämper (Freie Universität Berlin) deals with memories of National Socialism, the Second World War, the Holocaust and Stalinist extermination policies in Europe after 1945.

The Second World War in the New Millennium: National Memory Cultures and Universalist Narratives – Contrary or Complementary?

The presentation of Professor Arnd Bauerkämper (Freie Universität Berlin) deals with memories of National Socialism, the Second World War, the Holocaust and Stalinist extermination policies in Europe after 1945. It demonstrates that a common European memory culture has not evolved, even after the end of the Cold War. On the contrary, Europeans still remember mass violence in diverse and even contradictory ways. All in all, memories have remained contested and fractured, both within and between nation- states. This finding complies with an approach that takes spatial, temporal and generational differences into account.

Studies of memory cultures in Europe should also conceive remembering as an open-ended and multi-layered process. All in all, the turn towards more cosmopolitan or even universalistic memories of mass atrocities in the twentieth century has rather reframed than replaced national memory cultures in Europe.

rsvp: m.falkowski@instytutpileckiego.pl

photo: Wikimedia