Open remembrance
[automated translation using deepl.com]
“The term open remembrance is a description of a self-creating, active form of remembrance that wants to leave space for different forms of remembrance and processes that arise here. As the name suggests, it is not a closed form. […] Designing a place of remembrance is a political act […] and is perceived as this by us the victims together. For us, open commemoration always means referring to the story and consciously dealing with it and one’s own point of view. ”
– Excerpt from a speech at the Uckermarkforum in November 2010 by Wiltrut Cordes
“Open commemoration” is one of the most important topics within the Uckermark
Network, during the Working Camps as well as in several working groups. It is as
important for the plans concerning the grounds and the site as for the political and
theoretical critique of state-run memorial sites in Germany. This text tries to line out
the concept of “open commemoration” – again, this concept is vague and
controversial and needs a lot of ongoing debate.
Last but not least, open remembrance wants to focus on the perspectives of survivors. In a text from the initiative from 2013 it says:
“Open remembrance wants to listen to the prisoners and survivors […] with dignity and document their content or put their wishes in the foreground. Also in contrast to institutionalized to state commemoration, in which survivors find their place less and less and historians have taken up the space as experts. “
We asked ourselves what a suitable form to deal with the subject of Open Remembrance here. We found: It shouldn’t be just an explanatory text, because open remembrance lives from discussion and active participation. So we brought together various voices from individuals from the initiative for a memorial site for the former Uckermark concentration camp. We asked the others and ourselves: What does “Open Remembrance” mean to you? What is special about it and where are the limits? What discussions were and are there about the concept?
Thanks to everyone who made their personal contributions available to us! We have put them together in this little brochure: