›So, what does this have to do with me, anyway?‹

Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies VWI
trafo.K & Dirk Rupnow
in cooperation with Mauthausen Memorial

17–20 November 2011
Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue
Armbrustergasse 15, A-1190 Vienna

The commemoration of Nazism and the mass crime committed in this time, a cornerstone of Austrian (and European) historical consciousness and a central field of agency for Austrian (and European) identity politics and the politics of history, is currently in the process of undergoing a profound transformation. The changes taking place in the culture of memory are not only due to the emergence of a new generation and international policies, but also to migration. With it comes a diversification of perspectives, and through it a consciousness for the differences in how history has been experienced, remembered and conveyed. Therefore, placing a focus on the reality of a postcolonial, post-nazist migration society also means challenging majority society’s self-images and cultures of memory. And although the history of Nazism, the holocaust and Second World War is filled with transnational references, these are often omitted from traditional ways of teaching history in schools or memorials. Particularly in schools, the past is approached from within a strictly national framework.

Speakers: Dirk Rupnow, Nora Sternfeld, Béla Rásky, Samia Essabaa, Elke Gaugele, Viola Georgi, Araba Evelyn Johnston-Arthur, Serhat Karakayali, Radostina Patulova, Ljiljana Radonic, Karl Rössel, Marika Schmiedt, Aretha Schwarzbach-Apithy, Ines Garnitschnig, Gertraud Diendorfer, Maria Ecker, Peter Larndorfer, Paul Mecheril, Astrid Messerschmidt, Alexander Pollak, Rubia Salgado, Heribert Schiedel, Matthias Heyl, Yariv Lapid, Andrés Nader, Siegfried Mattl, Léontine Meijer-van Mensch, Katrin Pieper, Iannis Roder, Cornelia Siebeck

In cooperation with the Wiener Wiesenthal Institut für Holocaust-Studien VWI
Supported by Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, Paris

This project was supported by the Sparkling Science funding program of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research