European Sites of Conscience Network

Promoting Cultures of Tolerance and Democratic Value by Addressing Xenophobia and Exclusion
This network of historic sites and museums in Europe seeks to foster dialogue on issues of discrimination, migration, and xenophobia in Europe today. The network works to develop youth programs that use the sites’ unique histories to promote tolerance, democratic processes, and a European citizenship based in human rights. These youth programs will provide new spaces for long-time European citizens and newcomers alike to come together and explore how Europeans have confronted xenophobia and difference in the past – and how they might do so today. 

Read about the latest activities of this and other networks here.
 

Participants

B92
Contact: Veran Matić, Director
RDP B92 a.d.
Bulevar Zorana Dindica 64
11070 Beograd
Srbija
Tel: +381 11 301 2000
Fax: +381 11 301 2090
Email: veran.matic@b92.net
Website: http://www.b92.net/

In December 2007, the B92 Fund launched an initiative to build a Museum of Tolerance at the Old Fairground death camp site. Because of its history, the Old Fairground site is a critical location where a memorial educational complex should be placed in Serbia and in the Balkans. It will serve as memorial centre both for the events and history of repression after World War II, as well as for the wars waged in the period from 1991-1999, where interested parties can be introduced to the documents which encompass all the relevant facts related to these events in this dramatic period of time. The Belgrade Museum of Tolerance initiative entails the reconstruction of the buildings from the period when the concentration camp was situated there as well as the formation of a memorial centre which will include a partial reconstruction of the concentration camp. In addition, a cultural-educational centre will be set up with the intention to inform the public about the world’s history of violence and intolerance through a program exchange.

Le Bois Du Cazier
Contact: Christelle Dethy, Programmes Manager
80, rue du Cazier
6001 Marcinelle
Belgium
Tel: +32-(0)-71-88-08-58
Fax: +32-(0)-71-88-08-57
E-mail: c.dethy@leboisducazier.be
Website: www.leboisducazier.be

On August 8th, 1956, a fire spread through the Bois du Cazier coal mine in Marcinelle, claiming the lives of 262 men of 12 different nationalities. The disaster was the largest industrial tragedy of its kind in Belgian history, leaving in its wake hundreds of widows and orphans. More than half of the 262 victims were immigrants from Italy, who filled the need for labourers in Belgium’s former economic heartland. The tragedy put an end to a treaty that Belgium and Italy signed in 1946 to encourage Italian workers to come in Belgium to work in mines and led to stricter safety regulations for coal miners across the nation. A visit to the Bois du Cazier sensitizes visitors to question the costs and benefits of industrialization and consider issues of workplace safety. It also offers visitors the opportunity to reflect on the lives and past contributions of immigrants in Belgium and the factors influencing immigration policy today.
  
Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities
Contact: Peder Nustad, Educational Department
Postboks, 1168, Blindern
0318 Oslo
Norway
Tel: +47-22-84-21-29
Fax: +47-22-84-21-01
E-mail: p.e.nustad@hlsenteret.no
Website: www.hlsenteret.no

The Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities was founded in 2001 and in addition to its permanent exhibition on the Holocaust other genocides, the Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities (HL-senteret) is engaged in research, documentation and education, in addition to hosting temporary exhibitions. The permanent exhibition at Villa Grande tells the story of Nazi genocide and mass murder during the Second World War through audio and visual images, documents and artefacts. The exhibition focuses on the destruction of the Norwegian Jewish community under Nazi occupation. The center is located at Bygdøy in Oslo, in an old mansion called Villa Grande. The Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities and the permanent exhibition opened to the public in August 2006. Moreover, it is the explicit aim to be a meeting-place for people who want to participate in the enduring controversy concerning all kinds of religious, racist and ethnic motivated repression.

Discovery Center
Contact: Karmit Zysman, Director
Halil Alidemaj 26
Pristina
Kosovo
Email:discoverycenter@gmail.com

The Discovery Center provides a secure and open environment, where youth are encouraged to be curious. Emphasis is be placed on creating a safe space to afford young people the chance to examine a wide range of topics and interests, from exploring issues of ethnic identity, to learning how electricity works. Initiated in 2003, the first phase of the Discovery Center’s development will include a traveling exhibit to access remote, rural communities and to collaborate with Serbian, Albanian and Roma youth and activists.
 
Diversity Challenges
Contact: Will Glendinning
31 Bessbrook Road Markethill
Armagh
BT60 1RJ
United Kingdom
Email: w.o.m.glen@btinternet.com
Website:http://www.diversitychallenges.ik.com/

Diversity Challenges vision is a society in which people understand, and take responsibility for, the shared and distinctive traditions of all communities.  Diversity Challenges mission is to assist culturally specific groups in integrating community relations principles and considerations within all aspects of their work.  In working towards this mission, Diversity Challenges target key culturally specific groups within Ireland, with the greatest impact on community life and identify influential individuals within each group who are driving change (or wish to drive change) towards a fuller and more constructive role in a diverse society.  Diversity Challenges support the individuals through consultancy, coaching, training, networking and practical assistance to develop and implement change strategies within their organizations.  Diversity Challenges hopes to use their experience to develop and publish good practice models for international circulation and provide consultancy and training support on the use of the best practice models to agencies in other countries facing similar challenges.
  
Gernika Peace Museum Foundation
Contact: Iratxe Momoitio Astorkia, Director
Foru Plaza, 1, 48300 Gernika-Lumo
Bizkaia
Spain
Tel: +34-94-627-02-13
Fax: +34-94-625-86-08
E-mail: zuzendaritza.museoa@gernika-lumo.net
Website: http://www.peacemuseumguernica.org/
 
Gernika Peace Museum Foundation preserves, displays, publicizes, conducts research and educates visitors about the history of the Spanish civil war and the bombing of Gernika to foster dialogue and discussion on shaping a culture of peace. The Gernika Peace Museum was originally founded in 1998 to document the history of the 1937 bombing of Gernika during the Spanish Civil War. From 1999 to 2002, the Museum expanded its mission to become the first museum in Spain to focus on the theme of peace. The goal of the Museum is not to teach absolute truth, but to provide different ideas for achieving and maintaining peace. The Museum’s permanent exhibit has three main foci: to explore definitions of peace and how peace flourishes in relationships between people; to teach the legacy of the Gernika bombing, the lessons taught by survivors, and instances of reconciliation and mediation around the world; and to encourage discussion on contemporary peace issues.

Gedenkstätte Hadamar
Contact: Dr. Georg Lilienthal, Director
Mönchberg 8
65589 Hadamar
Germany
Tel: +64-33-917-174
Fax: +64-33-917-175
E-mail: gedenkstaette-hadamar@lwv-hessen.de
Website: www.gedenkstaette-hadamar.de/

From 1941 to 1945 about 15.000 people were killed in Hadamar. The victims were people with disabilities and with psychiatric diseases; the perpetrators were physicians, nurses and the administration. In 1941 the victims were killed by gas, from 1942 to 1945 they were given overdoses of medicaments. In 1983 Gedenkstätte Hadamar (Hadamar memorial) was opened and consists nowadays of the former killing-facilities, the bus-garage, the graveyard and the exhibition. The Gedenkstätte Hadamar has more than 14.000 visitors each year. About 95% get information via guided tours and lecture days. The visitors are mostly students (schools, nursing schools, universities). The emphasis lies on the relation between euthanasia-crimes and current issues, like the medical progress.

Healing Through Remembering
Contact: Kate Turner, Project Director
Alexander House, 17a Ormeau Avenue
Belfast, BT2 8HD
United Kingdom
Tel: +44-028-9023-8844
Fax: +44-028-9023-9944
E-mail: kate@healingthroughremembering.org
Website: www.healingthroughremembering.info

Healing Through Remembering (HTR) is an extensive cross-community project made up of a range of individual members holding differing political, social and religious perspectives who have come together to focus on the issue of how best to deal with the past relating to the conflict in and about Northern Ireland. Uniquely, HTR ensures comprehensive involvement of all stakeholders to investigate the feasibility, viability and usefulness of remembering the conflict and in so doing both individually and collectively contribute to building a better future for all. Through ongoing internal discussions, research, round table discussions, conferences and outreach programmes, HTR has produced a range of reports, options papers, discussion papers and audits which continue to inform discussion throughout society – this includes community groups, political parties, statutory and Government policy makers.

Historical Museum of the City of Krakow
Contact: Anna Gabryś, Ph.D.
Rynek Główny 35
31-011 Kraków
Poland
tel. +48-12-619-23-33
e-mail: international@mhk.pl
Website: www.mhk.pl
 

  
Memorial Democrátic
Contact: Oriol López i Badell, Historian and Sites of Memory Technician
Jordi Guixe i Coromines, Responsible for Projects and Spaces of Memory
Av. Diagonal, 409, 7a
08008 – Barcelona
Spain
Tel: +34-93-552-60-00
Fax: +93-552-60-20
E-mail: olopezb@gencat.cat
Website: http://memorialdemocratic.gencat.cat

By recovering formerly repressed histories and voices, Memorial Democrátic aims to defend the Catalan citizens’ “right to remember”. The institution works to research, preserve, and publicize the history of the period 1931-1981, including the democratic struggle against fascism during the Spanish Civil War, Franco’s regime, the citizens’ fight for democracy against the dictatorship, and the transition to democracy. Memorial Democràtic is a place of commemoration and serves as an information and resource centre for the Catalan government, other public administrations, and the civil society in their policies and initiatives to recover and share historic memories of the fight for democracy. The institution organizes traveling exhibitions, conferences and debates and publishes books for teachers and researchers, as well as pedagogical tools on how to engage students in recovering memory. Memorial Democràtic is dedicated to preserving historic sites and provides technical assistance and financial support to historic research and various memory projects. It aims to create a series of museums, sites, and visitor centres where the public can gather a comprehensive understanding of Catalonia’s recent history.

Museum of Free Derry
Contact: Adrian Kerr, Curator
55 Glenfada Park
Derry, Northern Ireland BT48 9DR
United Kingdom
Tel: +44-28-7136-0880
Fax: +44-28-7136-0881
E-mail: adrian@bloodysundaytrust.org
Website: www.museumoffreederry.org

On Sunday January 30, 1972, in an incident known as Bloody Sunday, British paratroopers killed 14 people and wounded 14 others after a peaceful civil rights march in the Bogside area of Derry. Glenfada Park, in the heart of the Bogside, lies on the “killing line” of Bloody Sunday, where four of the 14 men murdered that day were shot directly in front of or beside a block of flats facing the car park. The Museum of Free Derry is housed in the renovated flats in Glenfada Park, which symbolize the link between modern refurbished Bogside to the older Bogside neighbourhood where horrendous social conditions inspired the civil rights movement in the north of Ireland. The Museum covers the entire period of the national movement, with reference to its international context, and the onset of the troubles in Ireland leading up to the Bloody Sunday massacre and the British army invasion of Free Derry in July 1972.

Peace School Foundation of Monte Sole
Contact: Marzia Gigli, Director of Historical Research
Elena Monicelli, Director of Education
Via S. Martino, 25, Marzabotto
Bologna 40043
Italy
Tel: +39-05-193-1574
Fax: +39-05-193-1574
E-mail:marziagigli@montesole.org
Website: http://www.montesole.org/

The mission of the Peace School Foundation of Monte Sole is to promote training and peace education projects, non-violent transformation of conflicts, respect of human rights for peaceful coexistence among different people and cultures, and a society without xenophobia, racism, and any other kind of violence towards human beings and their environment. Between September 29 and October 5, 1944, around 800 people in more than 100 places in the mountains (small villages, churches and single houses) were killed by Nazi SS troops with the help of italian fascist elements. The houses and churches were burnt down everywhere. Today the land is preserved as a natural and historical park, scattered with ruins of the former village. The Peace School uses the sites as a basis for education programs and summer youth camps that examine the context that made that system of terror possible, both in Monte Sole and in other places.

Research & Documentation Center
Contact: Mirsad Tokaca, Director
Kupreška 17, 71000
Sarajevo
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Tel: +387 33 725 350/351/352
Email: tokaca@idc.org.ba
Website: http://www.idc.org.ba

The mission of the Research & Documentation Center is to gather facts, documents and data on genocide, war crimes and human rights violations during the Bosnia war, 1992-1995. The Center believes that by empowering Bosnian citizens with the facts of war it will prevent conflict and manipulation of the facts in the future. To this end, the Center has created two public resources; the Bosnian Book of the Dead – a database that includes the names of all the people killed during the war; and the Bosnian War Crimes Atlas – a geographic information system, which using Google Earth technology allows users to find sites of mass executions and mass graves across Bosnia, along with the names of the victims, as well as available court documentation.

Terezin Memorial
Contact: Jan Springl, Education Department
411 55 Terezín
Czech Republic
Tel: +420-416-782-131; 782-225
Fax: +420-416-782-245
E-mail: springl@pamatnik-terezin.cz
Website: http://www.pamatnik-terezin.cz/

During the Nazi occupation of the Czech part of Czechoslovakia in World War II, the Small Fortress of Terezín was turned into a Gestapo prison and the Great Fort – the town of Terezín – a Jewish ghetto and transit station to death camps in the east. For displaced Jews, the Terezín ghetto was a place of suffering, but also of resistance – nearly unimaginable courage, self-sacrifice, and unending struggle to save the intended victims of genocide. The key mission of the Terezin Memorial, the only institution of its kind in the Czech Republic, is to commemorate the victims of the Nazi political and racial persecution during the occupation of the Czech lands in World War II, to promote museum, research and educational activities, and look after the memorial sites connected with the suffering and death of dozens of thousands of victims of violence.

The Workhouse
Contact: Rachel Harrison, Property Manager
Upton Road
Southwell
Notts NG25 0PT
United Kingdom
Tel: 01-636- 817-260
Email: rachel.harrison@nationaltrust.org.uk
Website: http://www.workhouses.org.uk/

The Workhouse is a museum operated by the National Trust. Built in 1824, it was the prototype of the 19th century workhouse. The Workhouse is dedicated to preserving an example of a once familiar building that loomed on the outskirts of every town, and to interpreting its historic meaning as both a refuge and a warning to the millions who lived near subsistence level in 19th century Britain.