After Berlin in May, the second conference of our “Wer ist Walter?”-project will take place on 2nd and 3rd of October 2023 in Nice (France). While the conference in Berlin was mainly dedicated to the history of resistance against Nazism and fascism during World War Two, the panels of the conference in Nice will focus on questions related to the memory of the resistance since 1945, mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, France and Germany. The program will also include a public round table on the topic „Resistance against occupation in Nice during World War 2: From history to testimony“ as well as a visit to the Memorial-Museum Camp des Milles in Aix-en-Provence.
Gathering historians, curators and other researchers from different countries, the main aims of the conference are to present and discuss new research on the transmission of resistance since 1945, especially in Museums, with a specific focus on Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, France and Germany, in a comparative and European perspective.
The topics addressed in the three panels are:
- „How to transmit? Resistance as object of conservation, documentation, education and myth-making“
- „How to represent resistance in Museums ?”
- „(Why) do we need museums about resistance? Working on resistance within changing sociopolitical contexts“ .
The panels will include case studies about different countries, and are gathering authors of the papers which will be published in Summer 2024 in an edited volume as one of the results of the “Wer ist Walter?”-project. These will not be full papers presentations, each panelist will rather present some main points and questions related to his / her ongoing research, followed by an interactive exchange between the panelists and the other conference participants on the topic of the panel.
The first day of the conference will take place in the premises of the Centre International de Formation Européenne (CIFE), the French partner of the “Wer ist Walter?”-project, with exception of the public event which will take place at the Centre Culturel Franco-Allemand de Nice. On the 2nd day of the conference, the participants will visit the Memorial-Museum Camp des Milles in Aix-en-Provence. The Camp des Milles was used as an internment and then deportation camp between 1939 and 1942 ; the Memorial-Museum was opened in 2012 and pays a specific attention to the question how genocide can be prevented and resisted more effectively.
Panelists and moderators of the conference include: Marie-Edith Agostioni, Thomas Altmeyer, Enzo Barnabà, Patrizia Gallo, Yvan Gastaut, Jean-Marc Guiaume, Elma Hašimbegović, Sanja Horvatinčić, Mirna Jančić Doyle, Nataša Jagdhuhn, Maëlle Lepitre, Dagmar Lieske, Nataša Mataušić, Christian Melka, Nicolas Moll, Ana Panić, Robert Parzer, Nedim Pustahija, Nicolas Sadoul, Ralph Schor, Vladan Vukliš and Matthias Waechter.
You can find the detailed program of the conference here:
If you are in Nice and are interested in attending the public event on 2nd October at 18:00, you can register via the following link:
The conference is organised by Centre international de formation européenne (CIFE), the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, crossborder factory,and the Jasenovac Memorial Site, in cooperation with the Centre Culturel Franco-Allemand de Nice and the Memorial Camp des Milles, and is funded by the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ) and the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF).
For more information about the project “Wer ist Walter? Resistance against Nazism in Europe”, please write to info@weristwalter.eu, or consult the website: weristwalter.eu/project
Photo: “Death to Fascism, Freedom to People”, stained glass in the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, formerly Museum of Revolution, with damages dating from the 1992-1995 war. (c) History Museum of BiH