On 25 May 2026, an international conference titled “From Heroes to Remembrance: How Do We Build Memory Today?” took place at the Silesian Centre for Freedom and Solidarity in Katowice, Poland.
The conference as a part of the PEMC annual meeting event focused on how contemporary remembrance institutions translate heroism, sacrifice, and the legacy of totalitarian crimes into meaningful public memory—through methodology, programme design, and the creation of spaces that connect personal biographies with the architecture of remembrance and civic education.
As a keynote speaker Mr Łukasz Kamiński, Director of the National Ossolinski Institute presented his lecture entitled “Heroes, Victims and Memory: Creating Spaces of Remembrance and Experience”.
First panel moderated by Mr Paweł Ukielski (Warsaw Rising Museum) and with panelists Mr James Bartholomew (Museum of Communist Terror, UK); Mr Robert Ciupa (Silesian Centre for Freedom and Solidarity, PL) and Mr Peter Keup (UOKG, DE), examined how memory sites can avoid becoming static exhibitions by linking personal biographies to the physical architecture of remembrance. The discussion referenced examples including the tragedy of the “Wujek Nine” in Katowice, the Museum of Communist Terror in London, and the German approach to Stasi legacies—highlighting how institutions turn the history of a crime into a “classroom of freedom.”
Second panel moderated by Prof. Antoine Arjakovsky (College des Bernardins, FR) and the panelists Mr Eric Patterson (Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, USA); Mr Dariusz Węgrzyn (Silesian Centre of Freedom and Solidarity, PL); Mr Arūnas Bubnys (Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, LT) and Mr Joshua Evangelista (Gariwo Foundation, IT), explored whether a place of memory needs the Genius Loci (“spirit of the place”) to be authentic, or whether values can be institutionalized through symbolic action and political will. Speakers discussed how remembrance initiatives emerge and endure, and the roles of stakeholders, authorities, and cities—especially when physical traces of the past are limited or absent.
The organisers of the event were PEMC, National Ossolinski Institute; Silesian Centre for Freedom and Solidarity.
