cover image of Genealogies of Memory 2025: What Remains from the Second World War?  Remnants, Memories, and Narratives Revised project

    Genealogies of Memory 2025

    What Remains from the Second World War? Remnants, Memories and Narratives Revised

    15th Conference of the 'Genealogies of Memory'

    Time: 17 – 19 September 2025
    Location: Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, Jägerstraße 22-23, Berlin, Germany

    Has the Second World War ever truly ended? While the battles ceased decades ago, the war’s legacy endures − etched into the fabric of Europe’s landscapes, inscribed onto human bodies, and anchored as a cultural memory. The ruins of war persist both materially and symbolically − in the architectural remnants of destruction, in the physical and psychological scars carried across generations, and in the ruptures within language and representation. As we move into an era where the last living witnesses are disappearing, the question arises: what remains of the war, and how does it continue to shape historical consciousness?
    This memory studies conference examines the material, cultural, and memorial afterlives of WWII, interrogating the role of broadly defined ruins and materiality in post-war and contemporary memory cultures and historical narratives. By bringing together scholars from various disciplines, the conference will critically engage with not only what is left of the war, but also how these remnants continue to mediate the past and shape its understanding. The academic event will finally engage in a reflection on European memory cultures of the post-war era contextualizing them within contemporary socio-political challenges.

    The conference will centre on three main aspects:
    1. Theoretical reflection on the materiality of memory: How does the past persist in the present through physical remnants? This theme will explore the theoretical foundations of how memory is embedded in material traces and how these remnants continue to shape contemporary perceptions of history.
    2. Rethinking post-war memory cultures from the present: This section explores the constantly moving, changing nature of memory in terms of contemporary challenges. It investigates how new geopolitical and civilizational changes, as well as new forms of violence particularly Russia’s war against Ukraine—, have affected the memory of World War II. How have these developments reshaped or corrected cultural patterns and perceptions of the “other”? Furthermore, how do emerging digital technologies and unregulated social media influence the ways in which WWII is remembered and commemorated?
    3. Case studies linking theory and memory practices: Presentations in this section will delve into specific examples of symbolic and literal ruins of World War II, contested narratives about war, the intergenerational transmission of complex memories and trauma etc., and the influence of the war on culture and language. What new approaches have emerged for processing and coming to terms with 1945 and the post-war era? How has WWII’s legacy remained tangible across various domains of life?
     
    By integrating theoretical perspectives with empirical case studies, the conference aims to provide a comprehensive exploration of what remains of WWII in contemporary memory cultures, and what challenges memory cultures face in present times. It is directed to scholars of various disciplines, including history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, linguistics, literature, art history, political science, law, etc. Comparative and interdisciplinary studies are particularly welcome.


    We propose the following specific thematic blocks for presentations, yet other proposals are welcome as well:

    • The materiality of memory – theoretical perspectives
    • History of traces, ruins and remnants of war
    • Destruction of artworks and cultural heritage
    • Body and representation
    • Transgenerational and cultural transmission of trauma
    • Narratives, textbooks, and memory cultures
    • Oral history, testimony, literature
    • Digital technologies and new challenges

    Project Coordinator

    The coordinator of the 2025 edition of Genealogies of Memory is Dr. Konrad Bielecki.

    Contact: konrad.bielecki@enrs.eu

    Read more

    Programme

    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:
    1. Salome Berdzenishvili (Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam, The Netherlands): Re-Membering the Past: Navigating Memory Overload in Berlin
    2. Kasper Laegring (Aarhus University, Denmark): From Hermeneutic to Phenomenological Mnemonic Strategies in Berlin's WWII Memorials 
    3. Arkadi Milles and Christoph Meissner (Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, Germany): Dealing with the Soviet Legacy - Perceptions and Controversies about the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst)
    4. 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:
    1. Lea David (University College Dublin, Ireland): The Genealogical Trajectory of the 'Victims' Shoes Trope': From Concentration Camps to Political Protests
    2. 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)
    3. Cristina Moraru ("George Enescu" National University of Arts, Romania): The Kitchen as Archive: Gendered Materiality of Post-War Memory in Eastern Europe
    4. 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:
    1. Katarzyna Grzybowska (Jagellonian University, Poland): Human Remains as Material Witnesses of the Holocaust by Bullets in the Krępiecki Forest
    2. Helena Duffy (University of Wrocław, Poland): The Canine Witness: Phillipe Grimbert's 'Un Secret'
    3. 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
    4. 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:
    1. Matthias Weber (BKGE): Flight and Expulsion of the Germans in the Culture of Remembrance
    2. Barbara Tornquist-Plewa (Lund University, Sweden): The White Stork Synagogue and Wroclaw's Coming to Terms with Its Difficult Past
    3. Rūta Matimaitytė (Vilnius University / Lithuanian Institute of History): From Silence to Recognition: The Memory of East Prussian Wolf Children After the Second World War
    4. 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:
    1. Anastasiia Cherednychenko (ICOM Ukraine)
    2. Małgorzata Quinkenstein (Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin)
    3. Diana Vonnak (Czech Academy of Sciences, MEMPOP)
    4. 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:
    1. Malkhaz Toria (Ilia State University, Georgia): Meliton Kantaria and the WWII Victory Banner: Image, Memory, and Geopolitics in Post-Soviet Georgia
    2. Mindaugas Kvietkauskas (Vilnius University, Lithuania): Cultural Anti-Heroes in Contemporary Lithuanian Memory Wars
    3. Anna Zadora (Strasbourg University, France): European "Regime of Memory" an the Exceptional Belarusian Case
    4. 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:
    1. 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
    2. Ewa Ochman (University of Manchester, United Kingdom): Local Histories, Global Forces: Red Army Monuments in Post-Communist Eastern Europe
    3. 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:
    1. Franco Baldasso (Bard College NewYork, United States): 'Fare Tabula Rasa': Making Room for Something New in Italy's Postwar Ruinscape
    2. Charlotte Steele-Garg (University of Bristol / University of Touluse II - Jean Jaures): Traces of Internmet and Deportation in France's Physical Landscape
    3. 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:
    1. Marek Kucia (Jagellonian University, Poland): Beyond Materiality: How Institutions Construct Historical Consciousness
    2. 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
    3. 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:
    1. 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
    2. 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
    3. 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
    4. 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:
    1. Maggie Murray (Independent Researcher): Revoicing History: AI-Dubbed WWII Propaganda Speeches and the Affective Reshaping of Memory
    2. 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 
    3. Piotr Juszkiewicz (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland): Historiophoty as Counter-Memory in Polish Filmr from 1957 to 1963
    4. 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:
    1. Rochelle Fernandes (Goa University, India): Collateral Memory: Goa, Goans, and the War That was Not Theirs
    2. Andrea Fanta Castro (Florida International University, United States): Unmemory and the Limits of Genealogy: Reconstructing Holocaust Traces from Prague to Bogota
    3. 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'
    4. 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)

    Registration

    Participation in the conference is free of charge but registration is obligatory.

    Read more.

     

    Partners

    Organisers

    logo of ENRS
    logo of BKGE 2023


    Partners

    logo of German Resistance Memorial Center (GDW) in Berlin
    logo of Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory, and Material Culture
    logo of University of Southern Denmark, SDU
    logo of Faculty of Sociology UW
    logo of Zentrums für Historische Forschung Berlin  der Polnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
    logo of Muzeum Karlshorst,

    ENRS is funded by:

    logo of PL ministry 2023 NEW LOGO
    logo of DE Ministry
    logo of SL Ministry
    logo of RO Ministry
    logo of HU ministry 2023 NEW LOGO
    logo of Government of the Czech Republic


    logo of EU Disclaimer