Itineraries of memory

A data bank has been established to commemorate the main sites of the great conflicts that involved the European countries in the first half of the 20th century: the two world wars (1914-1918; 1940-1945) and the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). The European project “Les chemins de la mémoire” is promoted by the “Memorial de Caen”, with the involvement of various cultural institutions representing six countries of the European Union: Haus der Geschichte of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Bonn, Germany); D-Day Museum (Portsmouth, Great Britain); Ceges-Centre d’Etudes et de Documentation Guerre et Sociétés contemporaines (Brussels, Belgium); Museo de la Paz de Gernika (Guernica-Lumo, Spain); and Istituto per i beni artistici, culturali e naturali della Regione Emilia-Romagna (Bologna, Italy). “The final objective is to have a website on which to find the places of memory of each country, understood both as monuments, squares and parks dedicated to the memory of those tragic events, and as sites where events of particular significance took place”, explains ANGELO VARNI , chairman of the Scientific Committee that is coordinating the European project in Italy. The website is dedicated to the historian JEAN-BERNARD MOREAU , who died last year. He headed the scientific wing of the “Memorial de Caen”. His research was mainly focused on aspects of the Second World War, prisoners of war and the campaign in Normandy in 1944. EUROPEAN DIMENSION. The project “ Les chemins de la memoire” was conceived in response to the European funding programme “Culture 2000”. Its results are now available on the Internet (www.lescheminsdelamemoire.net ). Over 700 places of memory were plotted in the six participating countries. The sites in question, says Vito Paticchia, coordinator for the Italian part of the project, are “necessary to continue to reflect on the hostilities that characterized the last century and construct solid roots for a democratic, tolerant and peaceful European Union”. “So far the research has been concentrated on the six countries represented by the institutions participating in the project, but that does not preclude the data bank from being extended, in future, to other nations”, explains Paticchia. An historical fact file in six languages (Italian, French, Spanish, English, German and Flemish) can be found for each site and each event on the website. This is what “is unique about the project. At the same time it gives it a European dimension, encouraging a debate, within the individual nations, between historians and institutions, on the conflicts that have torn the continent”. RECONCILING THE MEMORY. The research has also brought to light some painful truths. “For example, the role, in some sense ambivalent, of the French presence in Italy – says Paticchia -. In fact, if we all remember and are unanimous in condemning the atrocities committed by the Nazi troops, the same does not go for another equally destructive reality, namely the sexual crimes committed by French troops along the Gustav line in Italy”. This was a German defensive line (September 1943 – spring 1944) that cut the country from the Adriatic to the Tyrrenian to block the allied advance. This truth has also given rise to controversies, but there cannot be any doubt about the seriousness of the historical reconstruction. According to Varni, “Europe suffers from too much memory: there’s a stratification of memories that, in the long term, burdens European events. Nor is it always a reconciled memory; on the contrary, at times it conceals latent conflicts that persist through the centuries, only suddenly to erupt anew, as dramatically demonstrated by the case of Yugoslavia in recent times”. Nonetheless, the task of memory “must be to give a common, universal sense to the experience suffered, in order to overcome the conditions of antagonism”. “Our research – stresses Varni – has served precisely for this purpose: overcoming the factors of hostility to attain a shared memory. That does not mean forgetting, or treating indifferently, those who were on the one side or the other: it means maintaining a balance that throws light on the reasons and positions of everyone, albeit in respect for the differences and the different evaluations attributed to historical events”.THE “MEMORIAL DE CAEN”. The leading institution of the project, the “Memorial de Caen”, is a model of how the places of memory of the Second World War should be used. A private institution established in the 1980s, it comprises not only the French organizations, but also institutions of countries that took part in the Normandy landings in 1944: the USA, Canada and Great Britain. The “Memorial”, which is also the main French museum of contemporary history, represents “an inspiring example of the custodianship of memory, linked to the use of the territory, also through the definition of itineraries and routes to commemorate the places where history was made”.