The Home of Memory

A “Home of European history” to give new impetus to Community integration. The proposal, put forward a year ago by Hans-Gert Poettering in his installation address as President of Strasbourg’s Parliament, is now making its first official steps. A panel of experts -consisting in ten university professors and directors of history museums from different Countries – has been assigned the task of preparing the project of the “home”. The Committee is composed by: Wlodzimierz Borodzjei (Poland), Timothy Garton Ash (Great Britain), Walter Hutter (Germany), Giorgo Cracco (Italy), Michel Dumuolin (Belgium), Marie-Hélène Joly (France), Matti Klinge (Finland), Ronald de Leeuw (The Netherlands), Antonio Reis (Portugal), Maria Schmidt (Hungary). Giorgio Cracco, Christian history scholar, and expert in medieval studies, illustrated the details of the initiative to Sir.Professor, the Commission entitled with launching the Home of European history will be meeting in Brussels on March 3rd. What are your expectations? “First of all, I am deeply interested in this initiative which we owe to the intuition and the determination of the President of the Euro-Parliament. I also think that it’s not an easy challenge. Mr. Poettering will be the one to express expectations as relates to the Home of History in his opening address. Its major objectives need to be defined. I wonder whether the idea is that of a Home-Museum, an exhibition of diversity aimed at enhancing and putting on display the different elements which marked our past, reaching out to our age. Or if perhaps it will be an Institute for the study of Peoples and States of the Old Continent along with the dissemination of specific literature. In which case, the structure would be completely different”. By when is it expected to be operative? “Objectives and methodologies need further development. However the draft program envisages the realization of a general project by next summer. Further consultation and definitions will follow suit. In the Spring of 2009, the issue should be debated in the Chamber. After having received a mandate from MEPs, the Home’s characteristics will be established, proceeding to its inauguration in 2014, in time for the elections of the Euro-chamber planned for that same year”. What could be the Home’s temporal framework? “The primary task is to study the Community’s integration process: we will therefore be focusing on the past fifty years. But it’s quite obvious to predict that studies will cover a larger time span. Historians need terms of reference and comparison…The very idea of a united Europe developed in time. The study of Europe’s roots entails a long-term retrospective”.Why is it so importance to address our glance to the past? Wouldn’t it be better to spend more energies to build the future? “In my opinion the latter, the future, cannot do without the former, the past. Let us consider the first steps of Community integration, in the post-World War II period. Let us recall the devastations throughout the Continent in 1945. It was marked by the tragedy of war, by totalitarian rules and by death. The Community was the greatest response to conflict, in the attempt of creating an area of peace and wellbeing. The States had understood that if they had not joined their forces, there would have been no future. I believe that this intent is valid still today”.