Conference (EN): New Memorials at Sites of State Mass Crimes in the 20th Century

In 2021/22, the Republic of Austria purchased several plots of land on the site of the former Gusen I concentration camp and near the "Bergkristall" tunnel complex in St. Georgen an der Gusen, which was built with the slave labour of concentration camp prisoners. A participation process involving international, national, and regional interest groups was initiated to further develop these areas into a dignified memorial site. The
result of this common process is a master plan with design and functional guidelines as the basis for future competitions.

The conference aims to present the master plan to a circle of experts and to discuss it in comparison with other (re)design processes of contemporary historical memorials in Europe. The first part of the conference will provide space to the presentation of individual (re)design processes. In the second part a round table
among representatives of the institutions responsible for these processes will discuss objectives, strategies, experiences, and challenges for the design of contemporary history memorials in the 21st century.

Conference Language: English
Time: 22 November, 2023, 14:00–19:30
Venue: Polish Institute in Vienna, Am Gestade 7, 1010 Vienna

Register here

Schedule & participants

14:00 Welcome and introduction
Monika Szmigiel-Turlej I Polish Institut; Barbara Glück I Mauthausen Memorial; Janusz Styczek I Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Austria
14:30 When Fascination Obscures Fate – Narratives of Technology vs. Forced Labour at the Bunker 'Valentin'
Markus Meyer | Denkort Bunker Valentin
15:00 Sobibór: Place, Memorial, Exhibition
Tomasz Kranz | The Majdanek State Museum
15:30 The Srebrenica Genocide Memorial
Emir Suljagić | Memorial Center Srebrenica
16:00 Coffee break
16:20 Place of the Memory – Memory of the Place. Lety Memorial – The Story of Fight for Memory
Anna Míšková | Memorial Lety
16:50 Memory and Participation: Re-designing the Gusen Memorial
Robert Vorberg | Mauthausen Memorial; Clemens Kopetzky | art:phalanx; Heribert Wolfmayer | heri&salli
17:30 Coffee break
17:45 Panel discussion: Challenges, Obstacles, and Chances in the Creation of New Memorial Sites
18:45 Fade out and networking

Download programme here