Tirana, 28 February – The Chairman of the Platform, Marek Murtor, attended the opening ceremony of the Memory Days 2023 (18-28 February 2023) and the opening of the European Gulag exhibition. Since 2016, the Memory Days is the only major event in Albania that deals with the recent communist history and brings exhibitions, workshops, conferences and publications on the subject to the general public. It is organised by the Institute for Democracy, Media and Culture in cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

“We have to remember. Because victims deserve to be remembered and because we need to build our resilience to authoritarian thinking today. It’s very important because unfortunately, history is coming back”, said Marek Murtor in his opening remarks.

The presentation of the European Gulag exhibition started the Days of Memory from the Site of Testimony and Memory in Shkodra, followed by a guided tour of this town, considered the city of the Albanian anti-communist resistance. The exhibition aroused great interest among the citizens of Shkodra.

During Memory Days 2023, a number of activities took place in Albania; the exhibition Children Behind the Wire in Communist Albania was presented in Tirana’s Central Square; a panel discussion with various international experts on the experiences of former communist countries in coming to terms with the past was held; various workshops were held and a number of studies and books on the communist dictatorship were presented. Three documentaries (“The Iron Box” by Nils Olger, “Women in Dictatorship – Beyond the Myth of Emancipation” and “Mama”) were also screened.