KS kultura sjećanja / remembrance culture

Kako dalje na odabranim lokacijama na Golom otoku, Grguru, Pagu i Rabu?

Sept. 30, 2017

The three-day workshop is dedicated to the sites of the Ustaša camp in Slana Bay on Pag, the Italian internment camp Kampor on Rab, and the Goli Otok and the nearby islet of Grgur, where communist authorities opened a male and female penitentiary for political prisoners in the late 1940s.

RIJEKA – The development of the memorialisation concept for the sites of political repression and suffering in the southern Kvarner area is the task of the workshop under title "Culture of Memory in Croatia and Contemporary Europe", opened on Friday at the Bonavia Hotel. The work-shop is organized by the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation and Documenta – Center for Dealing with the Past.

The three-day event is dedicated to the sites of the Ustasa camp in Slana Bay on Pag, the Italian internment camp Kampor on Rab, and the Goli Otok and the nearby islet of Grgur, where communist authorities opened a male and female penitentiary for political prisoners in the late 1940s. In addition to the round table and workshops, the meeting includes a study visit to selected localities, Goli otok and Rab, which will be visited in cooperation with the Association of Anti-Fascists from Rab and the Association Goli otok “Ante Zemljar”.

The main intention, explained Documenta manager Vesna Teršelič, is that the meeting results in three initial working groups, dedicated to selected localities, which would be additionally expanded at the later stage, said Teršelič, stressing the importance of involving academia and especially young generations, in order to have the opportunity to learn history based on facts.

In the year ahead, we should develop plans to establish memorial rooms, museums and audio guides for selected locations. I believe that there are opportunities to go into this as early as 2018, in order to take advantage of the backwind brought by the fact that Rijeka will be the European Capital of Culture, emphasized Ms. Teršelič at the opening of the event.

She added that Documenta advocates adequate marking of the sites of political persecution and suffering in different regimes, with scientifically based historical contextualisation.

Emphasizing the memory of the suffering of individuals and groups under the influence of ideologically motivated violence represents a value consensus around which a culture of memory in Croatia and the world should be developed, explained Vesna Teršelič, head of Documenta.

Novi list, published on 29 September 2017, by journalist Andrej Petrak