Issue #3: Editorial

This issue of Observing Memories represents the consolidation of a high quality multidisciplinary journal which explores the past from a permanent trans-European and international perspective. With each issue published, the Observatory’s reputation has grown and we are delighted to present our latest edition, published just after the exhumation of the dictator Francisco Franco from the mausoleum of the Valley of the Fallen. The removal of Franco’s remains is an important step for democracy both in Spain and in Europe. It means that we can now begin to consider this place of terror from the perspective of heritage and culture – perhaps even as a tourist destination, once tribute has been paid to the memory of the thousands of victims buried there illicitly by the dictatorship.

Ideology and Terror of the SS. An exhibition about the perpetrators, victims and bystanders in the memorial museum of Wewelsburg.

Cover picture: The crypt diplays reconstructions of the memorial cycle by Josef Glahé , first shown in in 1950, and incorporates Expressionist motifs depicting the horrors of war | M. Groppe, 2010, Kreismuseum Wewelsburg   By Kirsten John-Stucke, Director of the Kreismuseum Wewelsburg The Wewelsburg is a Renaissance castle that was built at the beginning …

The Social Life of Memory: Violence, Trauma, and Testimony in Lebanon and Morocco

Nikro, Norman Saadi; Hegasy, Sonja (Eds.). Palgrave, 2017   By Tsjalling Wierdsma, Master Student on Heritage and Memory Studies, University of Amsterdam. Fellow at EUROM (2018). The Social Life of Memory: Violence, Trauma, and Testimony in Lebanon and Morocco, edited by Norman Saadi Nikro and Sonja Hegasy, is part of the larger Palgrave Studies in …

Law and Memory: Towards Legal Governance of History

Belavusau, Uladzislau; Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias (Eds.). (2017) By Tsjalling Wierdsma, Master Student on Heritage and Memory Studies, University of Amsterdam. Scholar on practice at EUROM (2018). The volume Law and Memory: Towards Legal Governance of History (2017), edited by Uladzislau Belavusau and Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias, integrates various accounts by both lawyers and non-lawyers and approaches memory laws …

Travelling memory of the Holocaust “Auschwitz: Not long ago. Not far away”

An exhibition that aspires to spread the history of a place as cruelly unique as Auschwitz | Picture: David González, EUROM. By David González Vázquez, Assistant professor at the Department of Applied Didactics of the University of Barcelona, project manager at EUROM September 2018, Madrid. The second extension of the Exhibition “Auschwitz: Not long ago. …

History museums in the Caucasus. Between soviet nostalgia and current regional disputes

The Stalin Museum in Gori (Georgia)| Picture: Oriol López, EUROM   By Oriol López Badell,  coordinator of the European Observatory on Memories (EUROM), University of Barcelona’ Solidarity Foundation.   The region known as the South Caucasus comprises the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. All of them became independent states in 1991 with …

Can memorials heal the wounds?

All images by Ana Milošević   By Ana Milošević, a researcher at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium, affiliated with the Faculty of Social Sciences and the LINES Institute (Leuven International and European Studies).   In 2014, the Swedish artist Jonas Dahlberg won a competition for a memorial to the victims of the Utøya …