Places of Difficult Heritage, Education, and Human Rights

We invite teachers, educators, activists, experts in (difficult) heritage, museologists, and all interested people to join our first webinar in 2024. It will be entirely devoted to the role that places of difficult heritage can play in multidimensional education about human rights. We will hear from memory activists, the academia, and individuals actively working with difficult heritage sites on a daily basis.

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❓ Can places of difficult heritage—such as areas of former forced labor/concentration/death camps, prisons, juvenile detention centers, sites of executions, desecrated cemeteries, or prayer houses—play a role in today’s education about human rights and in shaping civic attitudes? How to adapt such institutions and places accordingly? How do we manage them to use their educational potential fully? Can they become spaces for civic mobilization and sensitization of different generations to the past, present, and future experiences of persecuted minority groups, discriminated against, or exposed to social exclusion? Does such a model work in Norway and is there a way that it could also be implemented in Poland and CEE? What can we learn from each other? Is there a wider EU perspective we can learn from?
🔎 We will look for answers to these and other questions during the first webinar of the new year, entirely devoted to the role that places of difficult heritage can play in multidimensional education about human rights. We will hear from memory activists, the academia, and individuals actively working with difficult heritage sites on a daily basis.
🇵🇱 The event will be an occasion to hear from the representatives of the FestivALT (Kraków), the Zapomniane Foundation (Warsaw), Cukerman’s Gate in Będzin and the Urban Memory Foundation (Wrocław), the Polish partners associated with the Engaged Memory Consortium (NeDiPa & MultiMemo EU-funded projects) dealing with neglected Jewish heritage sites in Poland.
🇳🇴 We will also share the perspective of the Falstad Centre Foundation from Norway. The Foundation was established in 2000 as a national center for the education and documentation of the history of imprisonment during the Second World War, humanitarian international law and human rights. Since 2006, the center moved into what was once the main building in the SS camp Falstad for political prisoners in Nazi-occupied Norway and earlier, at the beginning of the 20th century, a boarding school for misbehaving boys.
In 2023, the above-mentioned Polish and Norwegian partners were able to engage in the best practice exchange and learning, thanks to the Bilateral Cooperation Norwegian Grant.
🕒 PROGRAM 🕒
  • 18.00–18.15: Welcome and introduction of the discussed terminology
  • 18.15–18.35: Falstad Centre
  • 18.35–19.00: Engaged Memory Consortium Poland & NeDiPa
  • 19.00–19.15: The EU perspective: site-specific education about past violences and Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme of the EU?
  • 19.15–19.45: Discussion – what the Polish and Norwegian partners can learn from each other? Is there a universal model?
  • 19:15–20.00: Q&A

After a series of short presentations, we anticipate a joint, multi-voice discussion, as well as a time for a Q&A session. We invite teachers, educators, activists, experts in (difficult) heritage, museologists, and all interested people to join our webinar. The more diverse the group, the more inspiring the discussions!

Partners

The event is co-organized with the Falstad Centre Foundation, Research Center for Memory Cultures, Galicia Jewish Museum.

Financed by

This event is a part of the "NeDiPa: Negotiating Difficult Pasts" project funded by the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme of the EU, which FestivALT is implementing together with Fundacja Zapomniane and the Urban Memory Foundation. The program is part of Active Citizens Fund-Bilateral Initiative, funded by the EEA Grants (Norway) – Active Citizens Fund.