12th European Remembrance Symposium – 21~24 MAY 2024, Polish History Museum

Since 2012, the European Remembrance Symposium has been taking place every year in a different European city. The goal of European Remembrance Symposium is to exchange experiences and establish methods and forms of cooperation between institutions from different countries. Representatives of European historical institutions are invited to discuss the challenges facing Europe’s idea of culture of remembrance, specifically dealing with 20th-century European history.

This year, 2024, the 12th European Remembrance Symposium took place in Warsaw, Poland. Organised and managed by ENRS, European Network Remembrance and Solidarity , the 4-day symposium, once again, fostered dialogue on common European culture of remembrance.?

Through a series of debates and panel discussions, presentations of case studies, publications, exhibitions and field study visitations, the symposium covered a wide range of initiatives whose main aim is to foster international discourse on European history and remembrance.?

This year there was much focus on participatory design as a major aspect of some case studies that were presented. One that particularly stood out for me was Esther’s Willow. Initiated and developed by FestivALT Ester’s Willow project is a?collaboration between artists Katarzyna and Marta Sala and Robert Yerachmiel Sniderman for the city of Chrzanów in Poland, a?half-Jewish city until the Nazi genocide where the process of ethnic-cleansing took place and also continued postwar.?

Through participatory design initiatives, the artists have engaged with local and regional institutions, cultural workers, residents, and Jewish descendants and survivors of Chrzanów to?re-plant a?white willow sapling in the former Esther’s Square. Thus the concept of ?‘green commemoration’ – planting a tree instead of a monument has taken place. The symbolism of the ‘weeping willow’ now mediating between the ‘living and the dead’.

The project’s intention is to move beyond a singular happening, maintaining and forming relationships rooted in the project by organising future happenings, such as exhibitions, lectures, public meetings – collecting individual stories, installations, as well as a book and film.?

Information source: https://festivalt.com/en/project/esthers-willow/