Warsaw 5-7 December – The Platform of European Memory and Conscience Annual Meeting was held in Warsaw.

The event consisted of the meeting of the Council of Members (general assembly of the Platform) and an academic conference, “Remembrance as a key to understanding the present. Successful and comprehensive historical policies in the context of settlements with totalitarian crimes”. The meeting host was the Institute of National Remembrance, the Polish member organization of PEMC. The event gathered high representatives of member organizations and invited guests.

Representatives of member organizations discussed the most important challenges facing PECM, including the project of erecting the Memorial for Victims of Totalitarian Regimes in Brussels. “The brutal Russian attack on Ukraine confirmed the diagnosis that the Platform of European Memory and Conscience has been repeating for years: Communism has not been judged, so similar crimes appeared again. We can clearly see that the current war is rooted in the Soviet historical narrative and the Cold War way of understanding the world,” said Marek Mutor, president of PEMC, during his speech. “This is the reason why we must push even harder for the proper commemoration of the victims of all totalitarian regimes”, he added.

The Council of Members elected Pavel Žáček (CZ) to the Board of Trustees. Monika Rogers (LT) was also elected to another term as a member of the Supervisory Board. A new organization was admitted to the Platform: the Silesian Center for Freedom and Solidarity (PL). Candidate status was granted to the Center for Renewal of Culture (HR) and the Museum of Repressed Writers (GE).

The Council of Members accepted the Annual Report for 2022.

The accompanying academic conference was attended by, among others, the IPN President Karol Nawrocki, PhD, Ambassador of Israel to Poland, Yacov Livne, PhD, Elizabeth Spalding, PhD, Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and Founding Director of the VoC Museum in Washington D.C., Prof. Stéphane Courtois, author of the famous Black Book of Communism, and H.E. Juris Poikāns, Ambassador of Latvia to Poland. We also hosted Rasa Jukneviciene, MEP, leader of the European Remembrance Group in the European Parliament, and many opinion leaders.

See the conference report on the Institute of National Remembrance website.

The Annual Meeting was possible thanks to the support of the Polska Fundacja Narodowa.