How Can Remembrance on Collective Violence Succeed in a Pluralistic Society?

TraCe event on the future of remembrance at the Literaturhaus Frankfurt

Over the heads of the audience, you can see a wall of books and a man with a microphone and presentation cards.

How can collec­tive vio­lence be remem­bered in an open, plu­ralistic so­ciety? What forms of remem­brance are nee­ded in times of global up­heaval, and how can the prac­tice of remem­brance be shaped for the fu­ture? These ques­tions were addressed at the Ju­ly 8, 2025, eve­ning event, “The Fu­ture of Remem­brance,” at the Literatur­haus Frank­furt, which in­cluded a book presen­tation and sub­sequent panel dis­cussion.

To kick things off, co-editor Michael Pod­gorac and author Frida Robles pre­sented the an­thology “Er­innern in Zu­kunft: Calls for Plural Remem­brance” (Vienna: Mandel­baum Verlag, March 2025). The book’s di­verse array of aca­demic, ar­tistic, and ac­tivist contri­butors inter­pret remem­brance not as a mono­lithic prac­tice, but as a dy­namic and multi­faceted poli­tical act. They con­tend for a remem­brance that is in­clusive, em­bracing a multi­tude of voi­ces and per­spectives.

Over the heads of the audience, you can see a wall of books and a woman with a microphone and paper from which she reads aloud.

As part of the book launch, Pod­gorac pre­sented the “Bunker 16 - Ini­tiative Er­innern in Zu­kunft” project. The pro­ject aims to open an air-raid shel­ter from World War II un­der Yppen­platz in Vienna as an open place of remem­brance and en­counter for urban so­ciety. He set the stage for the au­dience’s engage­ment with the to­pic and dis­cussion by scree­ning two short films. One film fo­cused on the signi­ficance of the bunker in re­lation to con­temporary Vienna, while the other cen­tered on the e­vents in Sre­brenica and the arrest of Rat­ko Mladić. Frida Robles then read her contri­bution, "Call #9," from the an­thology. 

In front of a wall of books, a woman sits next to people on a podium and speaks into a microphone.

The sub­sequent panel dis­cussion, mo­derated by Jannik Pfister, delved dee­per into the ques­tion of plural forms of remem­brance. Con­sisting of Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Saba-Nur Cheema (Goethe University Frank­furt and for­mer head of the Poli­tical Edu­cation depart­ment at the Anne Frank Edu­cational Cen­ter), A. Dirk Mo­ses (City College of New York, CUNY), Anne Wiederhold-Daryana­vard (co-editor and cu­rator of Er­innern in Zukunft, Brunnen­passage Vienna), and Oliver von Wro­chem (director of the Neuen­gamme Concen­tration Camp Me­morial), the panel first exa­mined the roles of civil so­ciety and the state. While some pa­nelists criti­cized the state's role in remem­brance, others empha­sized the com­plex tension be­tween the two: Remem­brance ini­tiatives origi­nate from civil so­ciety “from below,” but have the po­tential to receive state fun­ding. There was par­ticular dis­cussion about how plura­listic remem­brance can foster soli­darity among various vic­tim groups. Remem­brance was viewed as a uni­fying factor rather than a compe­ting one. 

 

A bald man with glasses sits in the center of the picture past a row of people and speaks into a microphone. He is sitting on a podium in front of a wall of books.

Con­sidering the grow­ing threat of right-wing extre­mism, the panel empha­sized the impor­tance of resil­ient places of remem­brance. In times of crisis espe­cially, the lived prac­tice of remem­brance can play a key role in streng­thening demo­cratic and plu­ralistic societies. 

The con­cluding recep­tion provided an oppor­tunity for the approxi­mately 70 guests from aca­demia, remem­brance practices, and civil so­ciety to engage in in-depth dis­cussions and net­working. 

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