17/09/2025
Wednesday
10:00-10:20 (CET)
WELCOME SPEECHES AND INTRODUCTION TO THE CONFERENCE
Matthias Weber (Federal Institute for Culture and History of Eastern Europe, BKGE)
Rafał Rogulski (European Network Remembrance and Solidarity, ENRS)
Johannes Tuchel (German Resistance Memorial Center, GDW)
Gabor Danyi (ENRS)
Burkhard Olschowsky (BKGE)
Małgorzata Pakier (ENRS)
10:20-11:00 (CET)
KEYNOTE LECTURE: Dispersed History and Concentrated Memory. Current Holocaust Remembrance in Poland and Germany
Keynote: Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska (German Historical Institute Warsaw, Poland)
Chair: Małgorzata Pakier (ENRS)
11:00-11:20 (CET)
Coffee Break
11:20-13:15 (CET)
PANEL 1: Berlin - A City with a Fragmented and Contested Past
Chair: Rafał Rogulski (ENRS)
Commentary: Johannes Tuchel (GDW)
Panellists:
- Salome Berdzenishvili (Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam, The Netherlands): Re-Membering the Past: Navigating Memory Overload in Berlin
- Kasper Laegring (Aarhus University, Denmark): From Hermeneutic to Phenomenological Mnemonic Strategies in Berlin's WWII Memorials
- Arkadi Milles and Christoph Meissner (Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, Germany): Dealing with the Soviet Legacy - Perceptions and Controversies about the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst)
- Anat Kraslavsky (Humboldt University, Germany): "It's Giving Kristallnacht Energie": Memory, Necrophilia, and the Figure of the Jew in Contemporary Germany
12:50-13:50 (CET)
Lunch Break
13:50-15:29 (CET)
PANEL 2: Objects and Materialities
Chair and Commentary: Gabor Danyi (ENRS)
Panellists:
- Lea David (University College Dublin, Ireland): The Genealogical Trajectory of the 'Victims' Shoes Trope': From Concentration Camps to Political Protests
- Svetlana Vassileva-Karagyozova (University of Kansas, United States): Post-German Objects as Catalysts for Hybrid Identities in the Polish-German Borderlands: Insights from Joanna Bator's Novels 'Piaskowa Góra' (Sandy Hill) and 'Ciemno, prawie noc' (Dark, Almost Night)
- Cristina Moraru ("George Enescu" National University of Arts, Romania): The Kitchen as Archive: Gendered Materiality of Post-War Memory in Eastern Europe
- Urlich Oslender (Florida International University, United States): Tracing the Materiality of Unmemory: An Auto-Poetic Inquiry into WWII Heirloom
15:20-15:40 (CET)
Coffee Break
15:40-17:10 (CET)
PANEL 3: Material Witnesses and Hauntology
Chair: Marcin Fronia (Centre for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin, Germany)
Commentary: Małgorzata Pakier (ENRS)
Panellists:
- Katarzyna Grzybowska (Jagellonian University, Poland): Human Remains as Material Witnesses of the Holocaust by Bullets in the Krępiecki Forest
- Helena Duffy (University of Wrocław, Poland): The Canine Witness: Phillipe Grimbert's 'Un Secret'
- Karina Horeni and Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska (Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland): Things Left Behind: Post-Displacement Heritage in Central Europe Through the Lenses of Hauntology
- Dobrawa Lisak-Gębala (University of Wrocław, Poland): What Has Remained of the Second World War Weapon Sounds? The Case of Polish Literature
17:10-17:30 (CET)
Coffee Break
17:30-18:45 (CET)
ROUNDTABLE PANEL: Genealogy of War Memory Through Testimony
Moderator: Nanci Adler
Panellists: Dawid Grabowski, Mario Panico, Ihab Saloul
(Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Materiał Culture, University of Amsterdam)
19:00-22:00 (CET)
ENRS 20th ANNIVERSARY GALA
Lecture by: Jay Winter (Yale University, United States)
The Second World War Between History and Memory
18/09/2025
Thursday
9:00-10:30 (CET
PANEL 1: Contested Remembrance: Forced Migrations, Minorities, and Borderlands
Chair: Thomas Wegener Friis (University of Southern Denmark)
Commentary: Hedwig Wagner (Europa University Flensburg, Germany)
Panellists:
- Matthias Weber (BKGE): Flight and Expulsion of the Germans in the Culture of Remembrance
- Barbara Tornquist-Plewa (Lund University, Sweden): The White Stork Synagogue and Wroclaw's Coming to Terms with Its Difficult Past
- Rūta Matimaitytė (Vilnius University / Lithuanian Institute of History): From Silence to Recognition: The Memory of East Prussian Wolf Children After the Second World War
- Jon Thulstrup (Research Institute for European and American Studies, Greece): Forgotten Remembrance. Why It Took the German Minority in Denmark 70 Years to Recall WWII
10:30-10:50 (CET)
Coffee Break
10:50-12:10 (CET)
ROUNDTABLE PANEL: Saving and Curating Stolen or Endangered Cultural Heritage
Moderator: Gabor Danyi (ENRS)
Panellists:
- Anastasiia Cherednychenko (ICOM Ukraine)
- Małgorzata Quinkenstein (Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin)
- Diana Vonnak (Czech Academy of Sciences, MEMPOP)
- Les Yakymchuk (Museum of Stolen Art, Ukraine)
12:10-12:30 (CET)
Coffee Break
12:30-14:00 (CET)
PANEL 2: Politics of Memory in the Present
Chair: Burkhard Olschowsky (BKGE)
Commentary: Volker Weichset ('Osteuropa' journal)
Panellists:
- Malkhaz Toria (Ilia State University, Georgia): Meliton Kantaria and the WWII Victory Banner: Image, Memory, and Geopolitics in Post-Soviet Georgia
- Mindaugas Kvietkauskas (Vilnius University, Lithuania): Cultural Anti-Heroes in Contemporary Lithuanian Memory Wars
- Anna Zadora (Strasbourg University, France): European "Regime of Memory" an the Exceptional Belarusian Case
- Sophia Winkler and Felix Krawatzek (Centre for East European and International Studies in Berlin, Germany): When Histories Collide, Do Identities Shift? Comparing the Digital Homeland Among Migrant Generations
14:00-15:00 (CET)
Lunch Break
15:00-16:30 (CET)
PANEL 3: Monuments, War Graves, and Memorial Sites in (De)Construction
Chair: Malkhaz Toria (Ilia State University, Georgia)
Commentary: Burkhard Olschowsky (BKGE)
Panellists:
- Dorota Kownacka (Centre for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin / Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences): The Cathedral in Reims and the History of Two Wars. A Symbol of Destruction, a Tool of Propaganda, and a Witness of Victory
- Ewa Ochman (University of Manchester, United Kingdom): Local Histories, Global Forces: Red Army Monuments in Post-Communist Eastern Europe
- Mireno Berrettini (Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy): Diplomacy of Memory: The American Battle Monuments Commission and the U.S. WWII Cemetries System in Italy
16:30-16:50 (CET)
Coffee Break
16:50-18:20 (CET)
PANEL 4: Ruins and Traces in Physical and Symbolic Landscapes
Chair: Dorota Kownacka (Centre for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin / Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences)
Commentary: Robert Born (BKGE)
Panellists:
- Franco Baldasso (Bard College NewYork, United States): 'Fare Tabula Rasa': Making Room for Something New in Italy's Postwar Ruinscape
- Charlotte Steele-Garg (University of Bristol / University of Touluse II - Jean Jaures): Traces of Internmet and Deportation in France's Physical Landscape
- David Duindam and Carolyn Birdsall (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands): Radio Kootwijk as a Layered Heritage Site: Material Traces of War and Colonialism in a Nature Reserve
18:20-18:40 (CET)
Coffee Break
18:40-20:10 (CET)
PANEL 5: Musealized Memory: Representation, Authencity, Spatiality
Chair: Piotr Juszkiewicz (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland)
Commentary: Ihab Saloul (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Panellists:
- Marek Kucia (Jagellonian University, Poland): Beyond Materiality: How Institutions Construct Historical Consciousness
- Beatrice Leeming (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom): 'It Is a Shame That It Is So Modernised, but There Should Be Air Conditioning': Seeking Authencity in Memorial Sites, 1990-2024
- Maria Kobielska (Jagellonian University, Poland): 1945 Musealised in 2025. A Case Study From Polish Memory Culture
19/09/2025
Friday
9:00-10:30 (CET)
PANEL 1: Social, Institutional, and Grassroots Mnemonic Practices
Chair: Małgorzata Pakier (ENRS)
Commentary: Jorg Morre (Museum Berlin-Karlshorst)
Panellists:
- Chen Kertcher (Ariel University, Israel): Entagled Memories of WWII at the United Nations: A Comparative Study of Holocaust Reembrance Day an the 8-9 May Commemorations
- Lorant Bodi (University of Jewish Studies in Budapest, Hungary) and Daniel Schuch (Jena University, Germany): Revisiting the Remnants. Survivors' Pilgrimages to Former Concentration Camps in documentary Films
- Hedvika Novotna and Veronika Seidlova (Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic): Reinventing Holocaust Memory: Material Sites, Local Narratives, and Activist Temporalities in the Czech Republik
- Sofia Huerta Nunes (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan): U.S. Pccupation of Land, Memory, and Body: The Case of Postwa Okinawa
10:30-10:50 (CET)
Coffee Break
10:50-12:20 (CET)
PANEL 2: Mnemonic, Transmission, and Affectivity
Chair: Simona Mitroiu (Cuza University of Iasi, Romania)
Commentary: Maria Kobielska (Jagellonian University, Poland)
Panellists:
- Maggie Murray (Independent Researcher): Revoicing History: AI-Dubbed WWII Propaganda Speeches and the Affective Reshaping of Memory
- Agnieszka Podpora (Jagellonian University, Poland) and Dorota Gołuch (Cardiff University, United Kingdom): The Meaning of Remnants: How Translation Mediates the Legacy of WWII in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum
- Piotr Juszkiewicz (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland): Historiophoty as Counter-Memory in Polish Filmr from 1957 to 1963
- Erol Gulum (Bilecik University, Turkey): What If Turkey Joined WWII? Counter Memories in Alternate Histories on Social Media
12:20-12:40 (CET)
Coffee Break
12:40-14:10 (CET)
PANEL 3: Postmemory, Unmemory, Collateral Memory
Chair: Barbara Tornquist-Plewa (Lund University, Sweden)
Commentary: Thomas Wegener Friis (University of Southern Denmark)
Panellists:
- Rochelle Fernandes (Goa University, India): Collateral Memory: Goa, Goans, and the War That was Not Theirs
- Andrea Fanta Castro (Florida International University, United States): Unmemory and the Limits of Genealogy: Reconstructing Holocaust Traces from Prague to Bogota
- Christina Angela Howes (University of Catalunya, Spain): The Space Between: Postmemory, Wartime Spce, and the Ethics of Proximity in Rachel Seiffert's 'A Boy in Winter'
- Simona Mitroiu (Cuza University of Iasi, Romania): Eastern Experience and the Aftermath of the Second World War in Graphic Narratives
14:10-14:30 (CET)
CLOSING OF THE CONFERENCE
15:00-16:30 (CET)
Traces of WWII in the Centre of Berlin - City Walk organised by the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst (optional)