Debates and Experiences Between Memory and Materiality
David González Vázquez, Jordi Guixé Corominas, Grégory Tuban, Christian Dürr, Patricia Prieto Soto, Francisco Miguel De Toro Muñoz, Carlos Bitrián Varea, Marianna Bucchioni, Xavier Rubio-Campillo, Tania González Cantera, Olmo Masa de Lucas, Laia Encinar-Prat, Marta Salvador-Almela, Nayra Llonch-Molina, Jordi Arcos-Pumarola. Catarata Books, 2024.
This book explores the complex landscapes that serve as memorials to some of the most significant conflicts of the 20th century.
The heritage of conflict includes a wide range of spaces: battlefields, fortifications, rear-guard zones, sites of repression and confinement, places tied to colonial or slaveholding violence, and locations marking genocide or crimes against humanity. Through a multidisciplinary lens, this volume examines these diverse sites and the layered meanings they carry as both historical and memorial landmarks.
Among the cases discussed are memorials to internment and concentration camps—such as Rivesaltes (France), Gusen (Austria), and Dachau (Germany); industrial actors like Topf und Söhne, which manufactured the cremation ovens used by the Nazis; ruined population centers, such as Italy’s “scarred villages,” remnants of World War II; key battlegrounds like the Ebro during the Spanish Civil War; and Holocaust escape routes through the Pyrenees.
The breadth of examples presented invites deep reflection and debate about the ways conflict is remembered, commemorated, and materially preserved.
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