Sibylle Quack                                                            
Max Weber Chair
Center for European Studies
New York University
285 Mercer Street, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10003

Phone: 212-998-3717
Fax:     212-995-4188

e-mail: msq1@nyu.edu

 

Lecture at the European Union Studies Center, CUNY, New York, 28 February 2007 

Divided History – Common Memory?

A Question of the Culture of Memory in the European Union

Introduction

Three years ago, at the 2004 Leipzig Book Fair, former Latvian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sandra Kalniete, spoke of divisions in the historical consciousness which emerged in the wake of the Second World War and which still had to be overcome. Most people in the West, Kalniete argued, did not know how much terror and genocide carried out by the Soviet Union, had continued in Eastern Europe after World War II. Only since the fall of the wall and the opening of archives in Eastern Europe documentary proof of these crimes could be found, Kalniete said. When she added that the archival documents “confirm the truth that the two totalitarian regimes, Nazism and Communism, were equally criminal,“[1] Salomon Korn, the Vice President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, left the room. Kalniete´s words deeply unsettled him. He said later, equating one regime with the other in terms of criminality blurred the different experiences of suffering and did not do justice to the suffering of the Jews caused by the National Socialists racial policy which was aimed to wipe out the Jews. [2]

Over the next weeks and months, a debate on this incident took place in German newspapers. Kalniete and Korn publicly explained their points of views, and journalists and historians commented on the issue. It turned out that Kalniete´s mother at the age of 14 had been deported to Siberia by the Soviets in 1940, and that Kalniete had lost several members of her family in the Gulag. She herself had been born in a camp, and had lived there until the age of five.[3]

Articles also discussed the historical fact that in Latvia the Jewish population was almost completely murdered during the German occupation; and that Latvian collaborators played a significant role in this, for example the notorius firing squad under Victor Arad. Latvians were involved in all stages of the persecution and murder of their Jewish neighbours – from stigmatisation, terrorisation, expropriation and driving into ghettos, to murder.

Salomon Korn, who had lost many members of his family in the Holocaust and whose parents had survived the war in hiding in Poland, pointed out that he did not want to play down or relativise the reign of terror of the Soviet Union (and certainly not Kalniete´s suffering). But he emphasized that one could not accuse the Soviet Union of the same racist will to exterminate, which the Nazis displayed in such a unique way and that it was striving to find “a selectivity of terms for the historical – political dimensions.”[4] Sandra Kalniete also assured that she did not want to play down the crimes of the Nazis but insisted that the two regimes could not be evaluated in a hierarchy.

I start my talk with this incident at the Leipzig book fair because it highlights the difficulties facing a European dialogue on history and memory. Important in this context is, of course, the study of totalitarianism. But this is not what I want to talk about tonight. I will also not so much focus on the question of the singularity of the Holocaust. Rather, I want to raise the issue whether it is possible at all to arrive at a common “culture of memory” in the European Union, specifically on an institutional level. For this, I will put two initiatives on a European discourse on expulsion in the center of my talk.

Before I focus on these issues, let me briefly discuss some general questions of the memory discourse, which has developed through an incredible amount of publications over at least 15 years.

Suffering of the Past and Sharing a Program for the Future

In our time, the act of remembering and memorializing is closely linked with reflection and theory. Especially French authors and thinkers like Maurice Halbwachs, or in our time, Pierre Nora, and Paul Ricoeur, to name just a few, have profoundly influenced this discourse. In Germany, Aleida Assmann has just finished a new book on the issue, which explores the ever more complicated and wide ranging field within the era of cultural studies.[5]

Pierre Nora has reminded us why the world is witnessing what he calls an “upsurge” in memory: one reason is “the acceleration of history” (Daniel Halévi), which underlines the fact that rapid changes – not continuity and permanence – are shaping people´s future and make it so urgent to define what needs to be kept as memory of the past. And another reason is the need for the “reconstruction of a collective memory”, in the verge of decolonization and the fight for equal rights and justice, among minorities, identity groups, and countries. [6]

I want to refer to an earlier account of a French author, to Ernest Renan’s famous speech, “What is a nation?” which he delivered in 1882 at the Sorbonne in Paris. Here, he pointed out so eloquently that a nation is not only tied together by common interests; but decisively so by what he calls a “spiritual principle”, or “a soul”. It is constituted by two things “which in truth are but one: one lies in the past, one in the present.”[7]  Having suffered together and sharing a common program for the future – these are the elements which Renan held most valuable in the nation building process, and which he considered to be much more basic than common religions, languages, cultures, and races. Grief, Renan says, is of more value than triumph; grief “imposes duties, and requires a common effort.” It is this observation which makes Renan so appealing for the discussion of Europe today. But there is more: Renan was well aware of the fact that forgetting also constitutes a collective, and that there are or can be tensions between a nation’s memory, and historical research or what we call history. [8]  He knew that political and cultural constructions of memory are crucial for the formation and identity of collectives, and while he raised these issues in the context of his time by analyzing and promoting the building of nations, he was clear sighted enough to foresee that these entities would be overcome and to suggest that a European confederation would “very probably replace them.” [9] His remarks on memory and history may very much apply to our era. The European Union has a program for the future. It wants to integrate its different economies, peoples, countries, religions, and cultures. But what role does the past and especially past suffering play in the European integration and identity building process? In the case of a supranational institution like the EU it is extremely difficult to reduce suffering to a common denominator; the danger inherent in comparing and, to an even greater extent, equating the suffering of different peoples and groups involves ‘leveling off’ the suffering of others. Will it be possible that we all learn to respect the suffering of others - suffering that we have not experienced and which we will therefore never really be able to grasp - and to give it its due place in our collective memory? This is, for me, a central question, which goes right to the core. It overshadows initiatives and attempts to create a transnational dialogue on conflicting themes in the European Union, which are aimed at overcoming the separations of the past and the presence. Let me take a closer look at two initiatives to discuss these questions a bit more concrete. 

1. Conflicting Memories of Expulsion - The Failure of two European networks[10]

How much history and memory shape current political affairs in Europe is strikingly documented in the case of German-Polish relations. It is well known, that the memory of the flight and expulsion of millions of so called ethnic Germans from several Central and Eastern European countries after World War II, is a burning issue between Germany and Poland. The political support of the plan to build a “Center against Expulsions” in Berlin by German chancellor Angela Merkel and her coalition government in Berlin, as well as the strong opposition against this plan by the conservative government under prime minister Kaczynski in Poland, have led to tensions in the bilateral relations between the two countries. The project of a “Center against Expulsions” was initiated by the German “League of Expellees” with its leader Erika Steinbach (an outspoken member of the conservative Christian Democratic Party, and of the Bundestag). It has been widely criticized in Germany, especially among members of the Social Democratic Party, who previously have tried to avoid the center by integrating the idea into a wider, more European context. They have promoted an institution on the research and documentation of expulsion, not in Berlin but in Poland. I will come back to this a little later. Right now, I want to point out the fact that the whole idea of commemorating the suffering of the German expellees has seriously overshadowed German Polish relations. In addition, recent claims by the “Preussische Treuhand” before the European court of justice to return property in Poland or pay restitution, have worsened the political climate between Warsaw and Berlin. The “Preussische Treuhand” is a private association of former expelles in Germany who internationally call themselves “Prussian Claims, Inc”and try to resemble with this name the Jewish Claims Conference. They do not have governmental support.

However, while on the academic level, there has been an ongoing scholarly exchange on the question of expulsion and its historical context, this does not work so well on the governmental level. One of the reasons is that in Poland, as in other Central European countries, the suffering of the German expellees can usually not claim public sympathy and acknowledgement, and there is always the fear that acknowledgment will lead to restitution or property claim rights. [11] In the course of dealing with the question of how to commemorate this particular suffering, and how to integrate it into European collective memory, two parallel attempts to form European networks on the remembrance of flights, expulsions, and its context, met great obstacles, and so far have not been success stories.

Let me start with the network project of the “Council of Europe” and its “Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population”. It goes back to an initiative of the Polish lower chamber of parliament Sejm in November 2003, to found a pan European institution on the remembrance of totalitarianism in the 20^th Century.

Council of Europe Project (2003-)
With its initiative, the Sejm clearly reacted to the German debate on the “Center against Expulsion” project. This debate had been watched closely in Poland, and with unsettling feelings. Many politicians and commentators were of the opinion that not the expulsions of the 1940s should be in the center of a remembrance institution but rather the larger context of the two totalitarian systems of the 20^th century and its consequences. The decision of the Sejm to promote a “Center of the Remembrance of the Peoples of Europe” under the auspices of the Council of Europe was specified by the following words: “the institution should remember the totality of crimes of both totalitarian systems…it is supposed to foster research and provide documentation of the suffering of the peoples as well as of the resistance within the societies…” and included the following paragraph, which read like a comment on the German project:  “Each nation has the right to its own collective memory. But this memory ought not to be selective. Difficult historical facts are not to be left out simply because they are problematic for national identity.” [12] At the same time, this also had meaning for the coming to terms with the past in Poland itself.

During the following months, the Polish initiative underwent important changes within the “Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population” of the Council of Europe. The focus of the new institution was – contrary to what the Polish parliament had in mind – narrowed down from the broad theme of totalitarianism to the “victims of forced population movements and ethnic cleansing in the 20^th century”. [13] As the rapporteur of the Committee, Matts Einarson from Sweden, a member of the “Unified Group of the European Left”, pointed out, the future Center should not only contribute “to the creation of a common European memory, overcoming the divisions of the past”, but also work “as an instrument of conflict prevention by promoting the respect of human rights and the rights of national minorities”. It was also supposed “to combat racism and xenophobia by sensitizing European public opinion to the human and human rights aspects of forced population movements and ethnic cleansings.”[14]  Thus, it was to become indeed a “center on expulsions”, highly political, and obviously not to the like of the Polish delegation, which later on did not react to the whole project very positively any more but indeed rejected it.  But the project, now called “European Remembrance Center for Victims of Forced Populations Movements and Ethnic Cleansings” was met by strong objections from other countries as well. When the plan was discussed during the session of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe in Strassburg on January 27, 2005, it failed the necessary two third majority of the votes to be put on the agenda of the Council of Europe´s committee of ministers. And a second attempt, a year later, after very emotional discussions, again failed. With this, the project seems to be put on ice. 

What were the objections? Actually, the draft recommendation of the “Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population” for the project included very reasonable and true observations, for example when it stated that for a long time in history, “the international community has acquiesced in, and sometimes even encouraged, deportations and population transfers as a means to bring durable peace to a region. Nowadays, these acts are considered as a crime against humanity under the statutes of a number of international tribunals, including the International Criminal Court. In addition, it is widely recognised that they imply numerous and serious human rights violations.”  These remarks were not in the center of critique. Rather, protest came against the awkward attempt to mention all the different expulsions and deportations which had taken place since the Nazi period in one breath.

Let me give you some more quotes. The Committee´s recommendation started out by saying that during the recent history of Europe hardly any region had been extempted from the tragedy of mass deportation and forced migration. The text then pointed out that – and I quote -

 “In Central and Eastern Europe, massive migration movements took place as a result of treaties during or in the aftermath of the Second World War, which produced the forced displacement of Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs and Romanians”. The text went on: “In Germany and other territories under Nazi influence, Jews and Roma but also Russians, Poles, Ukranians and others were deported to concentration and death camps, and the former were victims of genocide.” Next, the victims of the former Soviet Union followed: “In the countries of the former Soviet Union, Russians, Finns, Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, Byelorussians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Azeris were forcibly resettled as well as Chechens, Tatars, Meshketians and many others.” And finally, the same paragraph mentioned that in recent years, “millions of people have been forcibly displaced in the Balkans and the Caucasus due to conflicts in these regions”.  [15]

Obviously, it took the authors of the draft version by surprise when strong opposition against the planned center was raised among several delegations including those from France, the Russian federation, Turkey, and others. It was the head of the French delegation, Bernard Schreiner, who sharply criticized the content of the draft and especially its presentation of all days on January 27, 2005, 60 years after the liberation of Auschwitz. In strong words, he claimed that this was an “unacceptable equalizing of the victims and a degradation of millions of martyrs of the final solution, as well as of resistance fighters, who had paid with their lives for the liberation of their countries”. Two different tragedies were dealt with on one level, Schreiner pointed out:  deportations into death camps and forced migrations of ethnic groups. The term “deportation” Schreiner wanted to be reserved for the victims of the Holocaust. [16] After some attempts to revise the draft in negotiations during the meeting, the project did not succeed in getting the necessary two third majoritiy of votes to proceed to the committee of ministers.  A year later, another revised version was again discussed in the assembly. This time, there was a hefty exchange of views between Ed vanThijn, who is a Holocaust survivor and a member of the Dutch delegation and promoted the center, and French delegate Bernard Schreiner, who still very much was opposed to the idea.[17] Again, the two third majority of votes in the assembly was not reached.

Thus, the attempt of opening up the discussion of the expulsion of Germans after World War II into a broader context of expulsion, deportation, forced migration and genocide, at least on the institutional level within the Council of Europe, had failed.
 

“European Network for Remembrance and Solidarity”

Let me now turn to the second project, a “European Network for Remembrance and Solidarity”. Originally, the plan for this European network goes back to an initiative of German Social Democrats during the Red-Green Coalition under Gerhard Schroeder. It also was a reaction to the Steinbach plan to establish a “Center against Expulsions” in Berlin. The idea was not coordinated and linked with the Council of Europe project, and in the course of events these two European projects obviously developed some competition and frictions between them – which was described by historian Stefan Troebst as an example of “interblocking” instead of interlocking institutions in Europe.[18] 

In May 2002, the German Bundestag debated the Steinbach Project, and decided, with a green-red majority of the votes, to start a dialogue on the establishment of a European Center against Expulsions. Its purpose was, “to document the expulsions of the 20^th century, their reasons, context, and consequences, among them the expulsions of the Germans. The victims of these expulsions should recognise their fate and suffering and at the same time learn about that of others caused by the expulsions of other peoples.” [19]  
 

The German “League of Expelles” under Erika Steinbach, criticized the decision of the Bundestag and especially the plan to post the future center in Poland; and the controversy in Germany between supporters of the Europeanization of the Center and the followers of Erika Steinbach´s idea deepened. In addition, during the course of the year 2003, a public Polish-German debate on the Steinbach plan also developed, which threatened to worsen the bilateral relations. As a response, and in order to improve these relations, the presidents of Poland and Germany, Aleksander Kwasnieski and Johannes Rau, on October 29, 2003, published a common statement, which is called the “Danzig Declaration”. It is worthwhile to look into this document a bit closer.

It emphasized that in the collective memories of Poland and Germany atrocities which had been carried out as a consequence of the war, unleashed by Nazi Germany, had a special place. These atrocities and “the martydom of millions”, the declaration went on, had fundamentally changed many societies in Europe, and still influenced the relations between the poeples. Resettlement, flights, and expulsion had become part of European history and identity, the declaration said.  In light of this past,

“we have to strengthen our activities for a better future. We have to remember the victims and to make sure that they were the last ones. Each nation has the right to mourn these victims, and it is our responsibility to make sure that memory and grief are not being abused to divide Europe again. Therefore, there is no room for restitution claims, reciprocal assignments of guilt, and setting off crimes and losses against each other…”[20]

Finally the declaration called for a “sincere European dialogue” on the resettlements, flights and expulsions of the 20^th century, and asked politicians and representatives of the civil societies to participate. Although there were positive reactions to the “Danzig Declaration” in Poland and Germany, many commentators and politicians in Poland disagreed. The very term “expulsion” touched on open wounds: It met strong Polish feelings of distrust towards Germany, and the fear of compensation claims of German property; it contradicted the conviction that Germans were not victims – even when expelled - because they had started the war; and it reminded Poles of their own expulsion after the Soviet annexiation of Polish eastern territories about which they had never been able to talk to the Soviets during Communism - let alone ask for compensation. And finally, the matter of being responsible for acts of violence and revenge towards Germans living in the areas that fell to Poland also played a role. 

The answer of the Sejm following the declaration of Danzig was the decision to initiate an institution that should rather remember and document the totality of crimes of both totalitarian systems under the auspices of the Council of Europe. We have already heard about this.

But the government in Germany under Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder pushed the idea of a European dialogue and network on expulsions further, and found some support within the Polish government. Both governments at this point tried to strengthen and to improve their relations, and not let this question divide both countries too much. Interestingly enough, the plan now was given into the hands of the cultural ministers, probably an attempt not to deal with the question as an issue of “high politics” any more.[21]

In August 2003, the German state minister of cultural affairs, Christina Weiss, addressed the issue after she had taken a common trip with her Polish colleague, cultural minister Waldemar Dobrowski, to several Polish-German border cities. Weiss stated that European unification was “incomplete without processing the flights and expulsions of the 20th Century.”[22] However, Weiss now proposed that the future European network should not be focused on flights and expulsions of the 20^th century only, but also remember the two totalitarian systems, as well as “the search for the historical roots of nation states and their delusion of ethnic homogeneity.”[23] Thus, Weiss turned actually to the direction of her Polish counterpart. But the pressure, to find an alternative to the Steinbach plan for the center in Berlin, was stronger, and Weiss did not hold on to this direction. When in light of the EU-enlargement in May 2004, the idea of the European network got new impetus, and the Polish government even agreed to include the cultural ministers of the Visegárd group of states (including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and the Slovak Republic) into the discussion of this question, conflicting views between Poland and Germany again became visible. In the course of a meeting of the cultural ministers of the Visegard group plus those of Germany and Austria in Warsaw in April 2004, German and Polish opinions collided. The Poles again strictly opposed any focus on flights and expulsions and opted for a much broader approach; the Germans held on to the idea of a European network on history, research, and documentation of expulsions.  At a press conference following the meeting, the Polish and Czech cultural ministers Waldemar Dabrowski and Pavel Dostal, spoke of a “Network of European Memory and Responsibility”, while their German colleague insistently called it a “Network of Forced Migrations in the Europe of the 20^th Century”. After the meeting, there was not much public response in Poland and in the other central European states; but in Germany, the state minister of cultural affairs publicly called it a big success and even Erika Steinbach seemed to agree. [24]

After that, behind the scenes, talks continued; and a couple of months later, a compromise in the question of how to name the network, had been found. It was now called: “European Network of Remembrance and Solidarity”. No hint that the subject was expulsions. Interestingly enough, there was a joint effort between Poland and Germany to find a compromise; and the Czechs, who had planned to stop the German plan with a Veto, altogether, were left alone. The German and Polish representatives quickly agreed to a historical contextualization of the forced migrations and expulsions, and the Hungarians and Slovaks also joined. The word “Solidarity” in the title was a concession to the Poles, and highly symbolic for them because it reminded of “Solidarnosc”, of course. After a couple of more negotiations, in February 2005, the cultural ministers of Poland, Germany, Slovakia and Hungary publicly announced the foundation of the “European Network for Remembrance and Solidarity”. One of the central paragraphs of the declaration stated that the four countries supported “a common analysis, documentation and distribution of the past”, “exclusively” based on the “European spirit of reconciliation”, and with the goal to help developing a “European Culture of Memory”.  Subject of the network were the documentation and processing “of the history of the 20^th century, as a century of wars, of totalitarian dictatorships, and of the suffering of civilians – as victims of wars, suppression, conquest, forced migrations, as well as victims of nationalist, racist, and ideologically motivated repressions. “[25] Thus, the focus of the network was much broader than originally promoted by the German side.  The question of expulsion and forced migration was integrated into the larger context, and the network was going to be coordinated and developed by an office in Warsaw.

But what seemed to be a promising sign of improving relations between Germany and some of its central European neighbors, soon became a disappointment. The main reason was that the governments in Germany and Poland changed over the course of the next months. After the elections in Germany in September 2004, the coalition agreement of the grand coalition under Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that they supported both, the European network and the Steinbach project:

“The coalition declares its commitment to dealing with forced migration, flight, and expulsion both socially and historically. In a spirit of reconciliation - and in collaboration with the European Network for  Remembrance and Solidarity beyond the countries involved at present, namely Poland, Hungary and Slovakia - , we want to put up a visible sign in Berlin in order to remind everyone that expulsions are unjust and should be banned for good.”[26]
It is interesting that in the German original, the term “visible sign” (“sichtbares Zeichen”) appeared, which had been used widely to comment on the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. Here, German Public Policy also wanted to put up a “visible sign”: this time that the country would never forget its responsibility for the Holocaust.  Was the choice of words an unwitting hint that in the eyes of conservative German politicians the victims of the expulsions were indeed equal with the victims of the Holocaust? Not only the Jewish community or the Polish government or public but basically the whole international community – including many people in Germany – would detest this view. For sure, this “wording” must have nurtured suspicion in Poland and elsewhere that the “Center against Expulsion” would get a highly symbolic place next to the Holocaust Memorial, aimed to put the Germans into the position of victims - comparable to the European Jews.

When the new Polish government sent its cultural minister Kazimierz Ujazdowski, who is a member of the conservative party of the Kaczynski brothers, to Berlin, it was clear that the plan of a Center in Berlin would continue to overshadow Polish German relations. Angela Merkel and her new state minister of cultural affairs in Berlin, Bernd Neumann (CDU), nevertheless held on to the plan. They announced that an already existing exhibition on expulsions in Bonn should be transferred to Berlin to become the core for the future Center. Those countries, who were members of the Network for Remembrance and Solidarity, would be invited to cooperate and to include their experiences into the new Center.[27]  This has not happened yet - and probably was paying lip service anyway. In reality, with the steps taken, there seems to be no interest on either side to use the European Network seriously. Chances to create an international or European dialogue on expulsions and to include the commemoration of the German expellees into a common culture of memory seem now even further away than before. The Social Democrats within the German government who have been active in the European network building process seem to have lost influence. [28] The fate of this network strikingly shows that national interests in the use of history and memory are in the foreground, and that the attempts to create a European and institutionalized dialogue on the suffering of different groups including Germans, meet great obstacles.

Finding common ground on a conflicting past

Let me at the end of my talk, summarize some general obersvations from the two examples I have chosen. Of course, there are more projects on the EU level, which deal with history and memory.  For example, in Brussels, a “Museum of Europe”, to be located in the new parliament building of the European Union, will open its doors to the public soon. Originally an initiative of Belgian civilians, the project eventually has been approved by both the European Parliament and the European Commission. With a scientific committee of international scholars, historians and museum experts, the museum can be considered as an important supranational and institutional attempt to find common ground on the history of the European peoples. There is no time to get into details of its historical concept here; but the museum’s goal sounds after what we have learned about the plans for the two networks, already familiar:  “not to hide the conflicts that have torn us apart. Recalling them must not serve to revive old hatred; rather it should spark compassion with respect to all the victims of these conflicts…”[29]  The people who run the museum are most interested in debate, and in a lively and flexible museological approach. They suggest, besides the permanent exhibition, several other, fresh exhibitions on changing themes and subjects. They will house conferences and workshops dedicated to European debates and questions on history, memory and identity.  The Museum will not own a collection by itself but rather exhibit collections and artefacts from European museums; it therefore needs to be in a constant dialogue with an international public as well as with a newly created network of so called Museums of Europe. So far, not many countries from Central and Eastern Europe have joined; but I could imagine that this project has chances to get governments or at least public museums in the different members states involved. May be this museum project will become more successful in the attempt to find common ground for conflicting feelings on the past because it seems more removed from national interests and politics, and will be able to “house” that dialogue in a city that some would like to become a cultural capital of the EU. 

But let me return to the two European networks. It is clear to me that we are far away from something that could be called a “common culture of memory” in Europe but rather are in the midst of conflicting and competiting memories of suffering and victimhood.  However, in my eyes the two network projects are not at all pure failures; they do show that there are serious attempts to create and foster a dialogue on memory within European institutions. Studying these attempts helps us to learn what the obstacles are. Three issues seem to me of great importance: The reference to the Holocaust, the concept of victims and perpetrators, and the question of “suffering” and “grief” as categories most decisive in a developing culture of memory.

Reference to the Holocaust

The universal meaning of the Holocaust and its international commemoration through museums, memorials, and remembrance days has become part of European identity. This does not mean that the commemoration of the Holocaust is an empty ritual removed from its historical context. Especially in connection with the museums and memorials on the historical sites of concentration and extermination camps, but also in the case of Holocaust museums in Jerusalem, Washington, and now in Berlin, which all work with personal stories of victims, embedded in the historical context, it is possible not only to learn about the historical facts but also to relate to these events with empathy and respect for the victims. Thus, these exhibitions also send out strong messages for the protection of human rights, for the rights of minorities, and warning to be aware of anti-Semitism and racism.  Whether the Holocaust will become the general point of reference which can unify and bind Europe’s conflicting memories together, as some historians have suggested, is not clear to me. (I had hoped so but was disappointed by learning that during the many meetings and discussions on the European constitution draft, between delegates from 25 European countries, the Holocaust obviously was not mentioned once; and it does not appear as a point of reference in the constitution itself.)

But while Holocaust commemoration has indeed become part of a common European memory culture, memories of Communist dictatorship, war, forced migration and expulsion, are closely linked to the national context, and, after the end of the Cold War are heavily involved in the identity processes of the new countries in Central and Eastern Europe. In the case of the network discussion within the Council of Europe, we could learn that the attempt to focus on expulsions led to a difficult situation with regard to the memory of the Holocaust: If memories linked to the Holocaust are included into the focus - the deportations to the ghettos, to the shooting sites, and to the death camps, the death marches – one is in danger to equalize this historical event, and to compare the incomparable.  But one cannot leave these experiences out, either, because of their significance and singularity. They need to be remembered in and for the context. This was the conflict Dutch delegate Ed van Tijn, who is a Holocaust survivor, had with Benard Schreiber from France.

Victims and Perpetrators

Another obstacle in finding common ground for a culture of memory in Europe, which we also can learn from the network projects, is the concept or notion of victims and perpetrators. The symbolism of these images is very powerful in the collective memories and identities of groups and whole societies; there is no way to ignore them. But they carry stereotypes, hinder to face a society that there was collaboration with a perpetrator, and they do not focus on the responsibility of the individual. They do not reflect on the possibilities of ambivalence, contradictions, or dilemmas of individuals. Furthermore, the image of being a victim always implies that there is a perpetrator, and this, being projected from the past into the presence and onto a collective, bears of course danger.

Common Suffering?

How do we end up? Is there, can there be, something like a memorial culture of

“common suffering”, or common grief, as Ernest Renan has suggested? Do the peoples of the enlarged European Union face their grief as a common experience which “requires common effort”? This is what brought the European Community into being, 50 years or more ago. Although it seemed to be clear who was victim and who had been perpetrator, common suffering caused by the Nazis and the Second World War was something one could refer to. There was no other way than focusing on the future and undertake common effort – economically, socially, politically - to prevent a relapse into barbarism. Now, it is a different situation. There is much new suffering and grief to learn about. Before these memories can be institutionalized – but I don´t mean imprisoned – the issue of past suffering obviously needs to be raised, fought for, emotionally spelled out, first.

Institutional frameworks cannot replace the content of the past with its different experiences; or erase different levels of pain. But as we have seen, even the attempt to build up these networks threw light on a broader view, beyond national and group interests. Grief is, like memory, a category which is first and foremost, personal. Yet the memories of grief and suffering, culturally and socially expressed, need not arrive at further divisions and fractions. The networks could help to foster what Polish journalist and author Adam Krzeminski has called the most productive form of memory: the “dialogisches Erinnern”[30] (commemoration in dialogue). This is, in my eyes, what a “culture of memory” in Europe is all about.