Future orientations of remembrance

For several years now, the question of demographic change and the associated decline of the generation of witnesses has dominated debates about remembrance of the Holocaust, National Socialist terror, the Second World War and its consequences, as well as flight and expulsion. What was discussed in the 1990s, for example, as a future demographic development, is now a fact: the number of contemporary witnesses is decreasing due to age. Against this backdrop, discussions about how the culture of remembrance or historical culture (questions about the choice of terms are part of the debate) should be structured in the future are gaining in intensity and in some cases are taking on a new quality. The objects of remembrance, their social relevance and political framing are being negotiated just as much as the forms, media and available financial resources. Today, questions about the future of remembrance are simultaneously situated in the context of broader, increasingly urgent future issues (especially climate change, digital transformation and geopolitical reorganization efforts) and are often linked to them.

The conference will analyze different aspects of the future orientation of remembrance. The focus will be on the complex of "flight and expulsion" of the German population in Eastern Europe in different local, regional, national and transnational contexts. In terms of time, current phenomena are of particular interest here. Historical forms of remembering "flight and expulsion" and their future orientations are also relevant.