IC MEMO Plenary Meeting: „Contemporary activties of Holocaust Memorials“ at the Shoah Memorial - Mémorial de la Shoah. Musée, Centre de documentation juive contemporaine in - 26th to 28th October 2011 The 52 participants came from France (roughly half of them), and from Belgium, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Israel , the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Spain. Welcome speeches: The conference had been jointly prepared by the IC Memo Board and the Shoah Memorial. An opening adress war given by Luc Levy from the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs. IC Memo's chairperson Vojtech Blodig opened the conference and gave a short retrospective of IC Memo's founding at ICOM's General Conference in 2001 and of the last ten years of its work. IC Memo is an association of professionals from Memorial Museums, which are all of recent foundation if compared to other museums. They commemorate the victims of crimes committed by states and therefor regularly were only possible after the states who ordered the crimes did no longer exist. They are committed to implementation of Human Rights everywhere by education and so to the key goals of UNESCO. IC Memo has endeavoured to include memorials worldwide and succeeded in the last ten years in winning members from 24 countries. Apart from the yearly membership meeting and international scholar's conference it has decided to support young professionals from non-European countries by grants which facilitate their participation at IC Memo's conferences or traineeships in memorials. Blodig presented the project of a Charter of IC Memo and invited the participants to contribute their opinions to the text, which should be passed at this annual meeting (the text is included in this report, p. 24 ff).

Hubert Cain, member of the board and treasurer of the Shoah Memorial traced it's history. It began as documentation center where documents from German occupation or the Vichy administration of France concerning the Jewish community and the mass murder of French and European Jews were collected. The memorial and museum in it's present form was made possible by president and opened in 2005.

1 Julien Anfruns, Director General of ICOM referred to ICOM's motto of 2011 „Museums and Memory“. The foundation of ICOM in 1946 had the purpose to secure cultural goods by means of international treaties against looting and transportation into other countries. It has developed ethic and professional standards for museums. 22.000 institutions are members. Anfruns stressed that ICOM is satisfied with IC Memo's work, especially in including other victims of state crimes than the Shoah.

Key Note Adress : „The Holocaust between history and memory: challenges and changes in education“ Georges Bensoussan is a historian and Chief Editor of the Periodical „Revue d'histoire de la Shoah“ which was founded in 1946 as „Le monde juive“. He stated that the current danger for the memory of the Shoah is it's trivialization and the creating of a Shoah consciousness as a substitute religion. He stressed the differences of the European consciousness of the Shoah but not of the victims of the Russian pogroms, of persecution of Jews in Spain or Poland, which are only commemorated in Jewish memory. Georges Bensoussan denied that antisemitism is a sufficient explanation for the Shoah. He maintained it could happen only after the acceleration of changes in modern society. He thinks that the Holocaust is not unique, it might be compared to other mass murders. All were catastrophes, but not all were equally implemented. Neither colonialism nor enslavement of Africans was a genocide, even if Africans today designate it thus. Bensoussan warned about tendencies to forget the fundamental differences between communist and Nazi crimes. An institution like Treblinka, built solely as killing center, did never exist in communist countries. He warned as well about the fascination of Fascism today and the new practice of calling the Gaza strip a „Warsaw Ghetto“ or the wearing of yellow stars by the „sans papiers“ immigrants without documents in France. Now, when every injustice is compared and even equalled to the Holocaust, Bensoussan thinks it is time to speak less about it. The Shoah, he fears, will be dejudaized, a sort of passion play for Christians, a story of human suffering for Non-Christians. Tthat the victims were Jews will be considered insignificant.

Visit of the Shoah Memorial by the participants of the conference

2 The memorial was established in that special place, the Marais quarter, because the Jewish refugees from Russia (during the pogroms of the 19th and early 20th century) from Turkey (where minorities were discriminated and in danger) from Poland (discrimination and persecution in the new Polish state) and from Germany (discrimination of Jewish immigrants from East Europe in the Weimar Republic and persecution of all Jews in the Nazi period) were living in great number in this quarter of Paris. Most of the victims of the Shoah in France were those former refugees. If they had succeeded in becoming French citizens, their citizenship was revoked by the Vichy administration.

Photo: Ingrid Schuppetta

3 The courtyard of the building contains several walls with the names and birth years of the Jews who where deported from France and perished. The number is between 70.000 and 80.000, the inscriptions on the walls are corrected and augmented whenever new information is obtained. On the outer wall - the adjoining Street has recently been renamed as „Street of the Just“- the „Just among the Nations“ the helpers and saviours of Jews in France are commemorated. The multimedia access to the theme is a feature of the Mémorial de la Shoa, the goal is to represent all victims with a photo and a family history. On loan from the National Archives, which was requested by president Chirac, are the police card indexes of the Jewish inhabitants of France, shown in a special room. General de Gaulle had ordererd their destruction in 1945, but parts of them of the region south of Paris were rescued. A lot of other documents are accessible in the Learning Center. In the Crypt there is a symbolic grave and an eternal flame, in the anteroom a model of the Warsaw ghetto A wall into which is inserted a wooden door from a barrack in a French camp for internees documents the French mistreatment of refugees from Nazi „Greater Germany“ in the beginning of the war and the cooperation of the Vichy administration with the Nazis in delivering them back to Germany on demand. In the permanent exhibition one part is reserved for the history of the Jews in France and others for the rest of Europe. A big middle section shows the photos and family histories of victims. Some objects are loans from the Auschwitz memorial, suitcases of French Jews. A son of a victim has filed a suit against the memorial to get back his father's suitcase. He won, but could be persuaded to give back the suitcase. A big exhibition of children's photos commemorates the Jewish children. Remarkable is the fact that a great number of Jewish children survived in France in hiding. The Holocaust is taught in School in France in the classes of age 10, 14 and 17 years.

Round table 1: Human Rights and tolerance educations at Holocaust memorials and museums: contemporary debates: Mariela Chyrikins, Anne Frank House, Amsterdam, Olivier Lalieu, Mémorial de la Shoah, Thomas Lutz, Topography of Terror, Berlin Chair: Jan Munk, Terezin Memorial

4 Thomas Lutz confessed to having problems with this topic, which is new in memorial museums and seems to enlarge their message and perhaps dilute it as well. Olivier Lalieu's opinion was that the Holocaust is a platform, a singular starting point for education about the relevance of Human Rights, but there are others like the Armenian genocide or the Ruanda mass murder. Visiting Auschwitz is not necessrily a precondition for a critical approach to racism. Mariela Chyrikins classified Shoah education and Human Rights education as each very specific according to their specific contents. Also Thomas Lutz maintained that the memorial museums have to stay true to their specific topics, their sites, mostly former camps or other sites of persecution, and must teach empathy for the victims. Human Rights education is for him education about laws. He would prefer to leave Human Rights outside the Memorial museums - except when visitors ask questions about this topic. As the visitors are inside the memorial at best for 4 hours, the teaching about human rights as well as about the history of the site and the victims is too complex. A participant mentioned the memorial Bayerisches Viertel in Berlin, it seemed to her exemplary to teach Human Rights [The memorial there tries to show in exemplary artistic manner the many laws and ordinances discriminating Jews. But this is a special case, because the process is one of legal persecution and contrasting that with human rights is simple]. Olivier Lalieu thinks that every visit to a memorial will show the importance of human rights. He gave the example of a French inmate of the Dachau camp who afterwards reformed the French prison system. On the other hand there was nearly no opposition of French victims of Nazi persecution against the torture in Algeria. Mariela Chyrikins asked whether there is a connection between both themes or not. She referred to an Amsterdam conference where similarities of Holocaust education and Human Rigths education had been developed. There are possibilities to teach empathy for the victims but teaching Human Rights is mostly the imparting knowledge. Thomas Lutz described the special German situation. Victims are mostly „the others“. But the perpetrators and bystanders are from a German standpoint „our crowd“. He fears Human rights education will try to declare the memory of the German crimes and the memorials as superfluous, to be replaced by Human Rights education. Mariela Chyrikins presented the Anne Frank House Human Rights education in a 4-days workshop „Coming to justice“ which leads from the Nuremberg trials to the International

5 Criminal Court in the Hague (with a visit there). The young people are able to name and work on their own problems and grievances in this workshop. At last, after a lot of contributions from the participants, a consensus (at least it seemed so to me) was achieved: The memorials were founded to remember the victims as victims and not as examples for disrespect of Human Rights, therefor those might be one theme, especially when visitors ask about them, but the memorials should not be burdened with Human Rights education as an additional task.

Round table 2. „How to deal with other genocides in Holocaust museums“ Chair: Jon Reitan, Falstad Memorial and Human Rights Center, Norway and Board member of IC Memo Jon Reitan reported about the flood of messages that reached them after the terrorist mass murder in near Oslo July. All those writing had seen a connection between the murderer and the Nazi period.

Yves Ternon, Shoah Memorial: „Why teach about genocides?“ Yves Ternon is a historian and physician. He cited the statutes of the 1945 London conference, preparing the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg) which defined crimes against humanity [murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation of civilians]. Ternon declared this to be insufficent and a bit ambiguous. Today the International Criminal Court has not very much enlarged it. Ternon mentions the ad-hoc-prosecution of the Ruanda genocide, originating from a resolution of the UN Security Council in 1994, neither this nor the International Criminal Court has achieved an unambiguous definition of „crimes against humanity“. In his opinion the persecution should not take into consideration the success or otherwise of the perpetrators but only ask whether the persecuted group would exist after a successful implementation of the murderer's intentions. Teaching the genocide of the Armenians, of the European Jews and Gipsies or of the Tutsis in Ruanda means taking note of the process of genocide, of the slippery slope. In the end the murders are no longer to be stopped. Ternon named five components necessary for genocide: 1. deathly ideology: racism, nationalism 2. resentment of the perpetrators against the victims as a group 3. a tradition of discrimination of the (potential) victims

6 4. war, when many restraints of life in peace are rescinded 5. isolation of the victims as consequence of the war, victims are declared to be the enemies from within. All three genocides of the 20th century have in common that the decision to murder the whole group was not published, was made in secret and - so far as possible - stayed a secret. Yves Ternon enumerated the insufficient prosecution of the genocides. Neither concerning the genocide of the Armenians, as only the „three pashas“ responsible for the genocide got a death sentence at the 1919 trials in Constantinople - in absentia, since they had fled the countryn nor the Ruanda tribunal and the succeeding prosecution of perpetrators in the Hague since 2003 have been successful. Connected with this unsatisfying juridical result is the far reaching denial. While the denial of the genocide of the Armenians by the Turkish republic is well known to international public, the denial of the Ruanda genocide, the assertion of mass murder of Hutu by the Tutsis as well, is more restricted to Ruanda. It has to be considered that the survivors there have to cope with the most difficult task to live together with their erstwhile murderers without a hope of escaping that situation.

Gretchen Skidmore, US Holocaust Memorial Museum: „How to include the genocide prevention dimension in Holocaust related museums?“ Gretchen Skidmore teaches genocide prevention to members of the administration and of the military forces of the USA. She refers to the history of the USHMM, which always wanted to work for the future, for genocide prevention. At the inauguration in 1993 Elie Wiesel requested the president to attack Yugoslavia. Gretchen Skidmore described the difficulties of her institution: They have to refrain from critizising US foreign policy. So they could hold a panel concerning the atrocities in Congo or an exhibition about those in Sudan, but their teaching is restricted to the three 20th century genocides listed by Yves Ternon. Together with other institutions and the administration the USHMM has launched a „Genocide Prevention Task Force“ in 2007, co-chairing Madeleine Albright and William Cohen. They presented their first report in 2008. It stated that prevention of genocides is a national security issue and in the US administration's interest. The USHMM teaching program for officers of the US army works principally with examples from German Nazi persecution and genocide: It delineates the process of defining, classifying, mustering, robbing, deporting and murdering the victims

7 Joel Kotek, Free Uuniversity of Brussels: „How to avoid competition of memories in this context?“ Joel Kotek too deplored the unclear definitions of genocide. He thinks that the memory of other genocides (and of war crimes, as in Chechenia) should be preserved. Comparisons are possible, but all comparisons will show similarities als well as differences. But there should be no equations or moralizing. It is dangerous to speak only of racism and to be silent about antisemitism. The Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust education, remembrance and research has often obscured the issues with loose talking and bold equations. Especially the education of the military about the dangers committing atrocities is advisable: They should be able to see them coming and therefor to prevent them. Ranking of genocides and war crimes should be avoided. For the victims and their relatives there is no less pain if the crime that killed is defined not as murder but as manslaughter. But teaching about it the difference has to be noted. During the discussion of these issues other examples were brought in focus. Joel Kotek states there were no communist genocides. „Holodomor“, the naming of the politics of starvation in the Ukraine in the 30ies a genocide is not supported by the facts. He even would not call Srebenica genocide. Yves Ternon contradicted him there, but agreed about the Ukraine. Gretchen Skidmore described and deplored the extraordinary desire of a lot of groups, especially minorities, to be recognized as victims of (State) crimes. This, she maintains, is senseless, preventing future genocides is of more moment. Concerning Holocaust education or Human Rights education there should be an age limitation of the students because an adequate understanding of Human Rights violations demand an individual capacity by pupils to deal with this topics intellectually. In the evening the participants of the conference went to a reception at the Hotel de Ville (town hall) of Paris. The alderwoman and deputy mayor CatherineVieu Charrier enumerated the municipality's efforts for the preservation of the memory of Nazi crimes. In this year 2011 memorial plaques were installed at the outer walls of all the schools who had Jewish children among their pupils. IC Memo's chairperson Vojtech Blodig thanked for these communal initiatives and for the municipality's support of the Mémorial de la Shoah.

The next day began with the visit to Drancy, former internment and transition camp. Charlotte Le Provost conducted the guided tour of the site. The region in the north-east, 20 kilometers from the city, has been built over in recent years. During the war years there was

8 only the - then very modern - complex of the Cité La Muette buildings. They consist today only of the U-formed three blocks that framed the camp of Drancy, the other buildings have been destroyed. The buildings now surrounding it are new. At the time of the German occupation the complex was no longer used to house people in apartments, but served as barracks for the French police. The U-formed space was partitioned at the open end, which faces the road, fenced in with barbed wire and provided with watch towers. Changing populations of internees were prisoners there. French and British prisoners of war, interned civilians from the Balkans. Drancy camp was under control of the French police and stayed so until 1943, when the Germans took over. Meanwhile, the French police in August 1941 arrested thousands of Jews and interned them in Drancy. The great Paris raid of the Vel d'Hiv. (Velodrome d'hiver, Winter cycling stadium, where the arrested were hold until brought to other camps, among them Drancy) on 17th of July 1942 is a landmark in the French history of the Shoah. For the first time the French police arrested not only Jewish men, but women and children as well. Those brought to Drancy suffered many deprivations. because the camp was built for 700 inmates, later about 7000 were corralled in. On 27th August 1942 began the deportations „to the east“, namely to Auschwitz, Majdanek, Sobibór, Kovno and Riga The camp was liberated on the 17th of August 1944. 2000 inmates were still there.

Photo: Norbert Haase

9

The inner space, where the camp had been, was for a long time used as scrapyard, only in the last years it has been cleared and made into a sort of park. The first signs of memory of the former camp were memorial plaques at the entrance of the first building, They look quite old - perhaps from the 50ies or early 60ies - one commemorates the British and one the French prisoners of war that were interned here at the beginning of the war, the third, for the deported Jews, must be from the same time as its language is the pretentious generalizing of these years when dealing with the Shoah. The next contribution to the memory of the camp is the memorial by the sculptor Shlomo Selinger which was inaugurated in 1976. A detailed description can be found an the internet site:http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/RESOURCE/GALLERY/dran.htm#01

The latest addition to the memorial site is a transformation of the space near the road and the monument into a shrubbery with paths and with rails leading to a wagon which serves as memorial space. Outside it is marked as able to contain 8 horses - stowed away lengthwise - or 40 men.

10 Photo: Ingrid Schuppetta

Inside the ways of the deportation trains across Europe are shown as well as a timetable of the deportation trains with its stops. It brings to mind how long the the train needed until it arrived at Auschwitz or other destinations. There are shown moving depositions of survivors about the voyage of several days in these trains with unsufficient food, water or even air and the arrival at their final destination with all its horrors. Explicitly is stated here that many of the deported died on the way and more had lost their reason when they arrived. I stress this because this so called „Witness Waggon“ is used for the instruction of schoolchildren. The waggon dates from 1988, at its side two new memorial plaques name the Vichy regime as co-responsible for the deportations besides the German occupiers. The people living in the quarter around the site of Drancy camp are mostly „musulmans“ i.e. North African and Turkish immigrants. Charlotte Le Provost has until now experienced only friendly interest or none, vandalism has not occurred. On the other side of the street the Memorial museum of Drancy is arising, it shall be opened on the anniversary of the Raid of August 17th 1942. It seems to be a modest functional building. In the afternoon the conference continued Denis Peschanski, Director of Research at CNRS (Center for pure research, comparable to the German Max-Planck Society) , University of Paris: „Camps in France during WW II“

In 1940 600.000 persons were interned in France. As a consequence of the deep division of French society, which came to a head at the beginning of the war, the first internees were those foreigners deemed dangerous to the authorities, the next group were the republican soldiers of the Spanish civil war, who had fled to the French region of the Roussilion through the Pyrenees. They did not understand, why they were so mistreated by the authorities in France, that these seemed to cooperate with the fascist Franco regime. A not inconsequential

11 number of them was repatriated by coercion and afterwards persecuted or killed by the Franco regime. At first, as nothing had been prepared on the French side of the border, they camped on the beaches and were there fenced in with barbed wire. They then began to build barracks for themselves. As they arrived mostly in the spring and summer of 1939 and did not expect to remain, the barracks for instance in the camp of Gurs were not built for withstanding bad weather. The windows had only shutters, so either they had air and light or they were dry in the dark. Three days after the French declaration of war, on Sept. 6th, 15.000 German and Austrian exiles in France were interned, France (Great Britain as well) acted as if this were a normal war between nationalities and interned the nationals of the „enemy aliens“. That these were in France (and Great Britain) because they were enemies of the Nazi regime in their countries was deemed irrelevant. Interned as well were about 10.000 French communists. As Germany and the Soviet Union were allies at this time, communists were considered to be the „enemy within“.

In the second phase many of the internees were moved away from the borders into the interior of the country. The Vichy administration was no longer content with the provisional solutions of their predecessor. The camps became a consolidated institution and were used for all categories of people that Vichy wished to ostracize. Most of the camps were situated in the South, in the unoccupied zone, some in the occupied zone, but only in the north-west, the north-east of France remained free of camps for internees. For the authorities of Vichy the reason for the French defeat was not the fault of the army, but the fault of French society's aberrations, namely the revolution and the republics, which, as they thought, resulted from conspiracies of foreigners, communists and Jews. The German priorities were others: safety of their troops and exploitation of the country for the German war effort. Both met in the practice of retribution for acts of resistance: The imprisoning and killing of communists as hostages was in the interest of German and French authorities. When the Gauleiters of South-West Germany succeeded in October of 1940 in deporting the Jews of this region to Gurs, the Vichy administration did at first protest but had to give in. As a great number of the deported Jews were oldish and not healthy the rate of mortality was high among these internees. The next phase of the camps are the years 1942 - 1944, dominated by deportations.

12 Non-Jewish internees were deported into forced labour camps in Germany, Jews „to the east“. The Vichy Prime minister Laval hoped to obtain a place for a French state in the new German-dominated Europe. For this he was prepared to abandon the Jews. Most of the Jews in the occupied zone were already imprisoned in camps, but he sacrificed also the Jews of the unoccupied zone. His chief negotiator was René Bousquet. After the liberation the camps were used for the „epuration“, (cleaning). They were again filled to excess, this time with collaborators and German civilians. As the post-war scarcity of food and every other means of existence was severe, these years of the camps are those with the highest death rate. These new internees were imprisoned as dangerous to the state. Ironically this was a return to the first period of the camps.

Round table 3: New Holocaust memorial projects in Europe Chair: Anne Grynberg, University Professor of contemporary history at the university Paris I Sorbonne

Adriens Ward, Director of the Mechelen Holocaust and Human Rights Museum: Adriens Ward stressed that the Belgian state has to cope with the memory of it's colonial history, World War I, when a big part of the country's infrastructure was destroyed and the occupation in World War II, when Jews and Gipsies were deported and murdered and a lot of other Belgians deported to forced labor camps in Germany. In the erstwhile camp and now memorial of Mechelen/Malines both deportations are commemorated. The special situation is that the building - military barracks of the 18th century, built by empress Maria Theresia - causes difficulties when used as a museum. An annexe with better lighting is under construction and shall be opened in September 2012. Another speciality of Mechelen are the abundant historical sources, nearly the whole „Joodenregister“ and the documents of the „Joodenrat“ were preserved and are already digitalized. Family registers and transport lists are preserverd as carbon copies. The memorial has thousands of photos taken from the diverse identity cards. The team of the memorial was able to reconstruct the transports and who was in them with photos and family histories which is a great help for the educational work. The Flemish administration has inaugurated this new, bigger institution as a museum for remembrance and Human Rights. The Human Rights are the portal, through which the visitors will go into the museum. It will be four times bigger than now. The administration's motto for it is: „More Darfur, less Auschwitz“

13 Adriens Ward thinks there is a chance in the fact that the persecution of Gipsies is remembered in the memorial as a Nazi crime. As this minority is the worst treated and most persecuted in the European Union, Human Rights education can start from this platform..

Alain Chouraqui, President of the Foundation Camp des Milles Alain Chouraqui was glad to report that after a struggle of 30 years the memorial of Les Milles opened this spring. The buildings have been declared protected. Now the Foundation has to prepare a permanent exhibition. He requested all who know about reliable testimonies about the internees or their resistance activities to name them to the Foundation. The Foundation wishes to inform also about the Vichy administration and how the Les Milles camp fitted into their concepts. It will also show a general outline about this time in the south of France, about the persecutions getting worse and worse. The speciality of Les Milles camp is the great number of intellectuals and artist imprisoned there. Then followed a discussion, beginning with the question, whether there could have been an artistical design of the memorial.

Renata Piatowska, Museum of the History of Polish Jews She maintained that the museum is no memorial. It is situated in Warsaw in the quarter of the former Ghetto and near the Rappaport monument. But its building is not a historical one. It is no museum of the normal sort, because it neither has nor shows a big collection of objects. It lives by the history it has to present, 1000 years of Jewish history in Poland. The issues of the museum are: 1. There has been a special Polish-Jewish (Ashkenas) civilization 2. If so, the question is: What makes Polish Jews Polish? 3. How did Jews and non-Jews live together in Poland? It is difficult for the museum to include, as it has to, the Holocaust. On the one hand, most objects and testimonies in its collection are of this period, on the other hand the Holocaust should not dominate the exhibition. There are not enough objects in the collection for the other periods of Polish-Jewish history or history of the Jews in Poland. Their story will be told only from their viewpoint, but the museum's team will try not to tell it only regarding the end. The Holocaust part will tell of the dilemmas of the victims. As the museum is in the former ghetto's quarter, the museum wanted to limit its Holocaust part to the story of the Warsaw Ghetto but in the end they decided against that because the other ghettoes

14 and their Jewish councils were so different from Warsaw. Until now the documents from the Ringelblum archives dominate, but it must be shown also what happened elsewhere, for example the „Aktion Reinhard“ or the mass killings in the occupied region of Soviet Union. Very important will be the Polish underground and the actions of hiding and saving Jews. The end will be the testimonies of the „Sonderkommando“ of Auschwitz. The museum hopes to counteract the pilgrimages of the „March of the Living“ visiting only the death camps by showing the Jewish life in Poland.

Round tabel 4: Looted Art and the Remembrance of the Victims of Public Crimes against Humanity Chair: Norbert Haase, Saxon State Ministry for Higher Education, Research and the Arts, IC Memo board member Norbert Haase asked whether the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art 1in 1998 had not created a new problem: How did museums develop forms to integrate the information of provenance in such a context into the ways of presenting art works and other cultural property within museums? How do legal owners of looted art that has been restituted in the meanwhile cooperate with public collections and museums to do so? - Are there restrictions to protect privacy? - Are there best practice examples how the history of the theft of cultural property and the biographies of the former owners could be integrated into a museological and educational sense? - How far did museum curators - perhaps in cooperation with memorial museums or experts of public remembrance- develop strategies to inform the public about looted art in an adequate way? - How far served funds from selling restituted cultural property for the support of memorial work or even the foundation of memorial museums?

Monique Constant, General Heritage Curator at the Archives of the Foreign Office, Paris Monique Constant gave a general survey on provenance research in France, being herself responsible for the archives of the Foreign Office outside the French national archives. There

15 are also relevant archives in the ministry of economic affairs conerning this matter. France started a reconstitution process already from 1944/1946 on: Nowadays it is often very difficult to verify the authenticity of the questionnaires on looted art of these days. The priority has always been to identify legal owners of the art work to restitute cultural goods instead of financial restitution. In the post war era the case of looted art restitution was kept in the hands of prominent cultural personalities of that time within deciding commissions, many of them beeing eyewitnesses themselves. The most important collection which was created since the existence of a collecting point for looted art was the „Fonds Rose Valland“ which has been rediscovered für reseachers after the German reunification in the early 1990ies. The findings of looted art in GDR collections led to a restitution of paintings after a mutual amendment of Chancellor Kohl and President Mitterand. When the „Musée d'Orsay“ put an exhibition on unidentified looted art on displa - so called MNR-Paintings („Musées Nationeaux Récupérations“) - the authorities got in touch with families who claimed to be legal owners of cultural goods. 45.000 of the about 100.000 art works that were identified as looted art by the „Commission Mattéoli“ were restituted to their legal owners. In the meanwhile a project of digitalization of the archives has been started, photographs of the art are published on the internet.

Karen Franklin Guest Curator at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York and board member of IC Memo. Karen Franklin stated that the question for museums is whether they have the duty to foster not only the memory of victims, of human beeings, but also of destroyed or looted works of art. The Museum of Jewish Heritage showed many exhibitions concerning this. But most American museums are not really interested in the issue. In many of them the provenance of their collections is not documented at all or not correctly. As so many are private and small and do not have any professional staff, the USA limps behind in implementing the resolutions of the Washington conference. Anyway, even with these handicaps the research in the USA has tracked a lot of looted works of art. But until now only 50 have been restored. The National Gallery has the means of financing research and their problematic Courbet - out of the collection of Hermann Göring - was restored and then bought again from the heirs of the rightful owner. The story of the Goudstikker collection, which was looted and then returned from Göring's homes and other houses and museums to the Netherlands to be restored, but instead of that taken over by the State museums after a dubious agreement with

16 the widow of Jacques Goldstikker is theme of a travelling exhibition of all Jewish museums in the USA. The Netherlands were at least, after the Washington conference and new claims by the heiress, shamed into establishing an arbitration panel, which in the end decided for the heiress. Karen Franklin reports that the story of the crime, the looting is theme of the exhibition, but a lot of visitors cared only about the old masters in it. Another exhibition was shown by the Leo Baeck Institute about the collection of the Düsseldorf art dealer Max Stern, which was as „Auktion 392“ in 1937 auctioned off by the Cologne art dealer Lempertz and is now claimed by the heirs. Funding from restitution is only possible via the Conference of Jewish Claims against Germany, which has special difficulties. Karen Franklin continued with the story of the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, an organization founded in 1947 that distributed Jewish objects of art and cult and books etc. found in the possession of Nazi institutions among Jewish institutions. Often even the minimal hints about the provenance of the objects that the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction could have given were not requested by the new owners. The problem about this had at this time not been recognized. The Jewish museums in the USA, whose collections come partly from this source have decided that they have the obligation to restore every object that is claimed with sufficient proof by the rightful owner's heirs. They do this because they are aware how the loss of these things is felt like a loss of identity by the victims and their heirs

Gilbert Lupfer, Director of the „Daphne“ research project at the State Art Collections Dresden Gilbert Lupfert presented pictures of the Klemperer collection of figurines by Johann Joachim Kändler (Meißen, 18th century). This was the first restitution (1991) from the Dresden State collections. 70 were restored to the heirs, who donated 15 to the museum. Every museum in Germany has objects of doubtful provenance in its collection. If not loots from the Nazi period, then loots from the former colonies or objects confiscated by the Red Army and then appropriated by the GDR After the Washington conference of 1998 there did pass quite a time until German museums found out how many items of their collection were looted art. Many did neglect the necessary research about the provenance of their collections, perhaps fearing the consequences. This has changed in the last five years, but there are still museum's directors sceptical about research of provenance. The researchers offer their service, but what happens after the

17 provenance is ascertained? It belongs to the competence of the museums or the their superiors (Councils of cities, ministeries etc.). Normally the result of the research is not published, at least not for the general public. The claimants deal not with the museums themselves, they are nearly all represented by lawyers. Whether the loot or the research about is is documented, whether this special memory is preserved does not concern them. The museums want to keep their objects, the claimants want them - it's business. It seems the museums are mostly not prepared to document anything about looted art. At present it is a fashion in museums to have only very tiny labels. To mention the object's provenance goes against this fashion. If museums established a shadow gallery of restored objects, i.e. their images, that would counteract our aims: the museums would appear as victims. Gilbert Lupfert then showed a Dresden picture of 1816, it was restored, but afterwards auctioned and bought back by the Dresden gallery. He thinks that it might be possible to document it's history. He than showed some photos of the Exhibition „Loot and restitution“ of the Berlin Jewish museum currently travelling and in Frankfurt's Jewish museum and photos of an exhibition about a Dreden private collection and its destruction during the Third Reich.

Pnina Rosenberg, Dept. of Humanities and arts, Technion, Haifa :“Salon des refusés. Art exhibitions in Frecnch internment camps“ The muses were not silenced in the French interment camps. On the contrary, many professional and amateur artists recorded their dehumanized life and portrayed their co- inmates in an attempt to leave behind traces of their fragile and uncertain existence. The full scale of this activity came to light only when the works were displayed in exhibitions held in the camps. The exhibitions, which were held in camps of both sides of the Demarcation Line, were organized either by welfare organizations or by the inmates' Cultural Committees. In incredible efforts to create a semblance of normal life, the exhibitions were run according to the accepted practices in the “outside world“ - a jury selected the best works and outstanding artists were awarded prizes. The displays attracted visitors from the surrounding area, a vital contact for the inmates. This not only broke their isolation but also enabled them to present themselves as productive, talented people, contrary to the image portrayed in the virulently xenophobic and anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda. The works, displaying minute depictions of the inmates' daily life, bear

18 testimony to the fact that the barbed wired fences could not imprison their souls, their imagination or their free spirits. The paper presented this phenomenon als well as the leading artists involved and also dealt with the contextualization of works of art displayed in such segregation and isolation.

This was the end of the conference. Next day some of the participants proceeded to: 10th Annual Membership Meeting IC MEMO October 28, 2011 ,Paris, France Participant members Vojtech Blodig, Luisa da Pena Diaz, Falstadsenteret (Jon Reitan), Karen Franklin, Angelle Ginebra, Norbert Haase, Christiane Hoss, Kirsten John-Stucke, Mémorial de la Shoah (Luc Levy), Memorial Democratic de Catalunya (Jordi Guixé i Coromines), Jan Munk, Pnina Rosenberg, Ingrid Schupetta, Stiftung Topographie des Terrors (Thomas Lutz)

1. Opening of the 10th annual membership meeting/approval of agenda Vojtech Blodig opened the membership meeting and asked whether there were wishes to change the agenda. There were none. 2. Report by Chairperson of IC MEMO Report by the IC MEMO Chair on Activities Since the 9th Plenary Meeting Dear colleagues, At the very beginning I would like to say a few words in memory of Wulff Brebeck, Honorary Chairperson of IC MEMO, who passed away on June 10, 2011, after a long illness. He had been IC MEMO´s founding chairperson and a real driving force behind the establishment of our organisation in 2001. Between 2001 and 2007 he was the chairperson of IC MEMO. He was instrumental in broadening IC MEMO´s membership in order to include all regions of the world. He was Director of the Wewelsburg district museum in Germany for 30 years. He was a tireless worker and a good friend. We will very miss him. Let us remember him in a minute of silence. We are meeting after a year that has brought many major events in the activities of our International Committee. First of all, I would like to recall that a new board was elected at the 9th membership meeting at Wewelsburg, and I was commissioned to chair this board until the end of 2011. As of January 1, 2012 this post will be taken over by Jon Reitan. Karel Fracapane, then an employee of the Mémorial de la Shoah, i.e. the institution hosting our

19 gathering, had been elected as Deputy-chair. Since he had started a new job in the Paris-based UNESCO Centre, he unfortunately asked to be relieved of this post and his place in the IC MEMO´s Board. I am happy to be able to brief today’s membership meeting about the method of resolving this particular situation. But before doing so, I would like to thank Karel Fracapane who has done a tremendous job primarily in the field of Holocaust remembrance, research and education and who has contributed to IC MEMO activities. I am glad to learn that he intends to continue cooperating with our International Committee in the future, even though the professional specialization in his new job does not enable him to devote himself to work as a member of the Board. At the recommendation of the incumbent Chair (Vojtěch Blodig), Chair-elect (Jon Reitan) and Deputy-chair (Jan Erik Schulte) the Board has approved the following changes, after having received consent from the candidates proposed. The current member of the Board Karen Franklin becomes Deputy-chair instead of Karel Fracapane. She will be replaced as a member of the Board by Jordi Guixé i Coromines. The incumbent Chair Vojtěch Blodig will replace Jon Reitan as a member of the Board. In keeping with our statutes, these partial changes will be made by co-opting the persons concerned. An ICOM world assembly was held in shortly after the IC MEMO membership meeting in Wewelsburg. Within its framework we prepared in conjunction with our Chinese hosts a Seminar called “Shanghai – Shelter of Jewish Refugees in the Years 1933 – 1945“ which took place during the 22th General Conference of ICOM. It was the first Seminar of IC MEMO organized outside of Europe, however the theme of the Seminar was a very European one. This Seminar spotlighted the fates of Jews from many European countries, which gradually fell under the yoke of German National Socialist regime. At that time, Shanghai represented an important escape route and a temporary home to a unique community of refugees who enjoyed considerable support from the local inhabitants. The seminar was intended to trace the history of this community, as seen by well-known international experts coming both from the countries of origin of those Jewish refugees and from the host country. A substantial part of the seminar was also devoted to the issue of the status of monuments connected with the history of the period under review, and with the history of the Shanghai ghetto in a wider sense, as well as plans for their further maintenance and use. It is however apt to note that preparations for the IC MEMO Conference posed unexpectedly great difficulties. A number of potential speakers who had initially displayed interest in presenting

20 their papers later had to take their promise back, mostly due to financial reasons, since they had not received allowances for their travel to and stay in Shanghai. Two of the speakers registered to appear did prepare their lectures but  due to the same reasons  had to send them to the organizers, asking for their papers to be read in Shanghai by someone else. For a time, we were even thinking of cancelling the whole workshop but  in view of the considerable efforts that had already been put into its organization as well as preparation of papers  we decided to go ahead and hold the workshop after all. As a matter of fact, it is no secret that because of fears of considerable costs of the travel and stay in Shanghai for most of our members it was decided to hold the 2010 annual membership meeting of IC MEMO in Wewelsburg one month before the ICOM General Conference in Shanghai. The Shanghai conference ended successfully, having met with a very good response among its participants and guests who had come to attend. These included members of other international committees and ICOM national organizations. On the other hand, the gathering highlighted quite clearly the problems accompanying efforts to promote the broadest possible international contacts among representatives of different countries, as well as the need to put an end to what is, on many occasions, a predominantly Eurocentrist nature of the activities evolved by the ICOM and its constituents. Our committee has decided to be more active than it has been so far in this respect, and to seek possibilities of involving in its work also more young people from non-European countries. We have already informed ICOM´s Central Secretariat in Paris of this intention, and we should add that, to date, we have encountered a good deal of understanding and support, including the first specific measure providing direct backing from the ICOM´s funds to promote participation of young experts in such events as this conference. As things stand, these are the very first steps but we believe that our efforts in this field will continue to receive this kind of support also in the future. In recent years, efforts aimed at winning over new IC MEMO members have been concentrated both on institutional and individual members; as for the latter case, the focus is on people of the younger generations. We have been striving primarily to raise the share of overseas (non-European) members since the European region still remains to be dominating in terms of territorial distribution of the membership base. Thanks to the initiative evolved by the IC MEMO members from the Dominican Republic (Luisa de Peňa, Angelle Ginebra), preparations have been launched for an international conference on the present and prospects of memorials documenting crimes against humanity committed by state regimes, with a

21 special focus on Latin America. The Board of IC MEMO took part in the conference both in terms of content and through its financial support geared to enhance attendance of several employees of museums and memorials from Latin America. To this end IC MEMO had used the financial contribution received within the last year from the ICOM Secretariat. The conference was held in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) on May 30 – June 4, 2011, and many participants from Latin America as well as several experts from Europe took part in this gathering. Ms. Angelle Ginebra, member of IC MEMO´s Board, has been commissioned to conduct a campaign to invite participants in Latin America, using primarily the Internet. She will provide a more detailed report during this meeting. IC MEMO¨s Board intends to ensure that our members´work will cover a more representative and differentiated range of crimes against humanity. We chose this approach because we wished to gradually shift the focus from concentrating mainly on Holocaust institutions and to increase the number of non-European members. The board aimed to make itself known among experts and to increasingly gain acceptance as the international professional organisation of memorial museums. We hope that IC MEMO will create the conditions both for an international exchange of experiences and for stable communication between members. IC MEMO set itself the goal of acting – wherever possible – as a lobby organisation for memorial museums. In June 2011, the IC MEMO´s Chair attended the 75th session of the ICOM Advisory Committee in Paris, which discussed the implementation of the Strategic Plan for this international association. ICOM´s international and national committees held joint deliberations submitting numerous topics to be discussed by the ICOM Executive. One of the widely discussed issues included the bank accounts of the international committees, frequent causes of complications and arguments. Unfortunately, the existing legal barriers still prevent these committees from establishing and keeping their own bank accounts in Paris through the ICOM Secretariat. Seen in this light, we doubly appreciate that the issue of IC MEMO´s bank account has been satisfactorily resolved earlier this year. At the latest membership meeting in Wewelsburg we also discussed an “International Memorial Museums Charter“. We think that internationally binding principles should be laid down on which the museums should be developing their activities, while seeking to affect the international public opinion. Since its first deliberations the IC MEMO has been engaged in a wide-ranging debate. This is aimed – among other goals – at taking into consideration the

22 prevailing conditions in which these museums have been operating in different parts of the world. Your expressed views are expected to complete the discussion that went on in a working group chaired by Thomas Lutz. On this occasion, I would like to thank him and his colleagues who participated in the work of this group. Thomas Lutz will conduct the final debate on the given document which should be approved at our meeting today. On the last Membership Meeting it was also suggested to develop a small leaflet about IC MEMO for prospective ICOM and IC MEMO members. It should to be given out during IC MEMO conferences or related events. The membership meeting accepted this proposal. It was agreed that a draft be produced by Ashild Karevold from the Falstad Memorial, Norway. We are sorry to say that Ashild cannot attend today’s meeting, and her statement will be conveyed by her colleague Jon Reitan. This message is also expected to deal with the ongoing efforts in upgrading the quality of our Homepage. Regrettably, our Homepage still leaves much to be desired, and I have to say straight away that it is not Ashild´s fault. On the contrary, she has always tried to respond as quickly as possible and immediately transfer the news just received to our web pages. However, it will be necessary to find a much more efficient way of making news and other information as well as documents on IC MEMO´s activities accessible to IC MEMO members as well as to the broader public. I do believe that today’s discussion will contribute its share to meeting this goal. Some of the major issues to be discussed at today’s session include the task of specifying data on the holding of membership meetings in 2012 and 2013 as well as the topics of IC MEMO´s forthcoming international conferences. You have already been informed about the events in 2013 in a circular letter. Next year´s membership meeting is expected to be hosted in Catalonia with the traditional international conference on the subject “The Role of Memorial Institutions in Developing Public Policies of Memory: Current Status and Future Challenges”. I would like to ask our colleagues from Catalonia to give more detailed information on this event. As I have already mentioned, there is an uneasy task awaiting us: to decide on the venue of the membership meeting in 2013. Since most members come from Europe, we will be undoubtedly faced with the same problem we had had to cope with in connection with preparations for the general conference in Shanghai. I would like to point out that we held our membership meeting and international conference in Europe, while a special seminar took place in Shanghai. The Board’s tentative proposal suggests to hold an IC MEMO seminar

23 called “Exhibiting Genocide and Mass Violence – History and Ethics” as part of the general conference in Rio de Janeiro. A yet unspecified European country could then host a membership assembly and international conference whose topic we are still leaving open. We will be grateful to receive your suggestions, and if a solution is not found at today’s meeting, we would like to ask you kindly to discuss this issue with your colleagues in your countries and send appropriate suggestions to the Board later. On several previous occasions I have briefed you on the situation concerning the interest displayed by Chinese memorial museums in IC MEMO membership. Let me recap on the position assumed by IC MEMO and approved by the last two membership assemblies. This particular stance is based on the view that an association of Chinese memorial museums cannot be admitted as whole since these include many museums whose focus by no means conforms with the specifications of our activities given by the statutes. However, we are prepared to admit individual museums that will prove that the focus of their activities corresponds with the statutes. The Chinese side has been silent since the last exchange of letters in the spring of this year. I would like to single out the already mentioned positive fact, namely the establishment of IC MEMO´s bank account following complex deliberations held over a period of several months. In way of explanation I would like to add that up to now the account was kept in the name of the Secretary-Treasurer, which posed a number of complicated procedural issues and also constituted an excessive personal workload for the Secretary-Treasurer. In this context first of all I would like to appreciate the initiative of the new Secretary-Treasurer Christianne Hoss and what was exemplary cooperation between herself and the former Treasurer Norbert Haase, as well as cooperation between the Deputy-chair (Jan Erik Schulte) and other Board members (Thomas Lutz, Markus Ohlhauser). The outcome of their efforts pursued over several months was the conclusion of a contract with the EL-De-Haus union in Cologne that made it possible to establish a bank account with the full authority of IC MEMO as an organization in a savings bank of that city. At the end of my report, let me wish this Membership Meeting much success.

3. Report by Secretary/Treasurer of IC MEMO This report had to be corrected after I received the bank statements of IC Memo's account in 2010, which I got only during the Paris conference. The report presented in Paris contained an error about which items were to allocate to 2010 and which to 2011. This was caused by a

24 misleading form of annual balance, issued by the Internet-bank. For good measure I added a fault of my own transposing numbers. Participants of the Paris conference are earnestly required to throw the old Treasur's report away and insert this new one Income Expenses Account Balance on 1st of January 2010 5.539,98 Annual meeting 2010 435,79 Subvention ICOM 2010 3.273,- Surplus from interest , subtracted are banking fees and mailing fees 4,55 ------______8.817,53 435,79 ./. 435,79 ------

Saldo: = Account balance on 31st 8.381,74 December 2010 ======

When I was elected last year I wanted to change one thing about IC Memo's finances: Until then our money got to an account which the treasurer had established for IC Memo but on his name. The new IC MEMO Board tried to fubd a different solution that better fits into the tax system for a publici assosciation. Therefor I asked an organisation in Cologne, the Verein EL- DE-Haus, (founder of the local Memorial in the house of the former Gestapostelle Köln), to help us and to open an account for us. It means our account is controlled not only IC Memo but by the Verein EL-DE-Haus as well, but as there are only so few items to control, that is no hardship for anyone. It means also we profit from the Verein beeing tax free. Until now the taxes on the small sums in IC Memo's account have been small as well, but perhaps we shall later on handle bigger sums. Then it will be good to be tax-free.

Members of IC Memo Unfortunately there was a hitch in the communications with ICOM about the membership of IC Memo. We shall get new information about that only in a few weeks. So for the moment I only know about 79 members , 22 institutions and 57 personal members:

25 Austria 4, Belgium 1, Brazil 2, 1, Czech Republic 2, Dominican Republic 2, 1, France 4, Germany 30, Iran 1, Israel 3, Japan 1, Latvia 2, Morocco 1, Namibia 1, Netherlands 4, Norway 6, Poland 3, Russian Federation 2, Spain 2, Sweden 1, United Kingdom 1, USA 4 Christiane Hoss 4. Report on the work of the Subcommittee preparing the International Memorial Museums Charter Thomas Lutz reported that the necessity of a charter was discussed at the 9th annual meeting and a committee elected to prepare a charter. The charter's text, as agreed in Paris, is: Apopted by the ITF/MMWG: Amsterdam, June 2011 Adopted by the IC MEMO: Paris, October 2011 International Memorial Museums Charter Introduction

Memorial museums are responsible to protect the dignity of the victims from all forms of exploitation and to ensure, beyond conventional history lessons, that the interpretation of political events inspires critical, independent thinking about the past.

This is why it is time that the memorial museums, as a unique form of contemporary history museums, should reach an understanding for cooperation with each other on a national and international level.

An organizational framework needed for an international consortium has already been created. The mission of the International Task force for Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research is to support institutions that commemorate Nazi-victims and support the preservation of the historic sites, sources, and artifacts in the spirit and purpose of the Stockholm Declaration. The mission of the International Committee of Memorial Museums (IC MEMO) through its integration into the International Council of Museums (ICOM) honoring the UN Charter's universal ethical and political principles, is to universal human and civil rights and the careful preservation of cultural assets. The IC MEMO functions as an umbrella organization for many

26 very different memorial museums located in Europe, Africa, America and Asia that are dedicated to victims of state tyranny.

Charter

This is an international memorial museums charter that is oriented both towards the UN declaration of Human Rights and the ethical principles of ICOM. General principles of commemoration in memorial museums are:

1. A joint culture of remembrance cannot and must not be dictated by decree. Given the very different historical experiences, memorial museums should accept the co-existence of different commemorative imperatives that are aimed at pluralistic cultures of remembrance. Institutions should be designed for cooperation instead of encouraging competition which can create a struggle for dominance. Should this be a practical venture, a joint culture of remembrance could develop gradually out of a multitude of decentralized initiatives.

2. A pluralistic culture of remembrance also requires a shared set of positive values. These already exist in the universal declaration of human and civil rights.

3. Memorial museums as contemporary history museums are involved mostly in remembering public crimes committed against minorities. This is why current states, governments, and local communities bear a great responsibility to memorial museums and should safeguard their collections and assure them the highest degree of independence from political directives. At the same time the memorial museums have to anchor themselves broadly within civil society and make a special effort to integrate minorities.

4. Modern memorial museums are contemporary history museums with a special obligation to humanitarian and civic education. The memorial museums will only be able to assert themselves against political interests and lobbyists if they have achieved a high level of quality work, infrastructure, and personal organization.

5. Fundamental decisions in the memorial museums concerning content, education and design should be made mostly on the basis of an open, non-hierarchical pluralistic discussion with

27 survivors, scholars, educators, lobbyists, and committed social groups. The work of memorial museums is principally science based. State-run institutions and private sponsors have to accept this.

6. Information conveyed in exhibitions, publications and educational projects about historical events should evoke empathy with the victims as individual humans and groups which were specifically targeted for persecution. Interpretation should avoid commemoration in the form of revenge, hate and resentments between different groups of victims.

7. Historical experiences have to be integrated into historical contexts without minimizing the personal suffering of individuals. The integration of historical events should take place on the level of modern contemporary historical research and honor the scholarly principles of discourse and multiple perspectives.

8. The perspective of the perpetrators who committed the crimes has to be addressed. The perpetrators should not be demonized, but rather their ideology, aims and motives should be used to explain their actions. This includes the institutional and social mechanism as well as the individual biographies of perpetrators. The ability to question one's own perspective also takes into account the inclusion of one's own crimes and self-images into the presentation of the "other." The broad and very diverse group of bystanders should be handled in the same manner.

9. Memorial museums located at historically authentic sites where crimes were committed provide an immense opportunity for conducting historical and civic education, but there are also big risks involved. This is why memorial museums need to orient their educational work less towards an agreement about the content and more towards universal principles. These demand that the visitors are not overwhelmed or indoctrinated, that the subjective view of individuals is respected, and that controversial subjects are treated as controversial.

10. Memorial museums as contemporary history museums are always engaged in self- criticism of their own history, and have to embed it in a history of their respective remembrance culture. Cognizant of current trends of thinking, they should gear their

28 presentations towards current interpretations of the past, while being anchored to the actual historical events.

5. Report on the International Conference of Memorial Museums in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Angelle Ginebra reported about the very successful conference. ( see also Vojtech Blodig's report on page 20).

6. Developments in the preparation of the new homepage of IC MEMO and the print of an IC MEMO information leaflet This item on the agenda could not be treated, as Jon Reitan had to leave earlier because his flight time was changed. 7. Next Membership Meeting and Conference in Catalonia Jordi Giuxé i Comines reported that the conference will be in the autumn of 2012, the program has still to be worked on, but there are so many sites in Catalonia with „double memories“ or more, that these should be the main theme. He named the border town of Port Bou with its memorial to Walter Benjamin and the sites of exile: of refugees from Nazi persecution and of refugees from Franco's Spain. Luisa de Pena remarked that the Spanish republican exiles have had considerable influence the countries of Latin America. She added that the Spanish and Latin American dictators were supported by Western democracies. About a million of man and woman have been killed in these dictatorships as „terrorists“. 8. The Membership Meeting 2013 and the ICOM General Conference in Rio de Janeiro Vojtech Blodig had in his report presented this so far: a seminar - like in Shanghai - at the ICOM General Conference in Rio and the IC Memo annual membership in an European country because so many of the European members would have difficulties paying for the travel to Rio de Janeiro. In a blazing appeal Luisa da Pena demanded that IC Memo prove its declarations of internationality by the deed, i.e. hold the annual meeting 2012 in Rio de Janeiro. She requested all members to begin saving at once and to gratify the many new memorials in Latin America by having the membership meeting and the scholar's conference of IC Memo

29 as part of ICOM's General Conference in Rio de Janeiro. There was no voting, but the members (so it seemed to me) agreed . Karen Franklin reminded the members of the memorial for the victims of the terrorist attack of 9.11.2001, which will be opened in 2013. The theme of the victims of terrorism and how to remember them in memorials should be considered for Rio. Luisa de Pena seconded this proposal

9. Any other business Karen Franklin on behalf of all members thanked Vojtech Blodig for many years of excellent leadership

Cologne, 31.12.2011 Christiane Hoss, Secretary/Treasurer of IC Memo

30