2014/10/01 by Kristen Ghodsee · 5 citations
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Italian Fascism and Post-war Society #Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration
paper · doi:10.5406/historypresent.4.2.0115
openalex publication_date 2014/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/17
On June 3, 2008, a group of conservative Eastern European politicians and intellectuals signed the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism in the Czech parliament. The signatories to this Declaration proclaimed that the “millions of victims of Communism and their families are entitled to enjoy justice, sympathy, understanding and recognition for their sufferings in the same way as the victims of Nazism have been morally and politically recognized” and that there should be “an all-European understanding . . . that many crimes committed in the name of Communism should be assessed as crimes against humanity . . . in the same way Nazi crimes were assessed by the Nuremberg Tribunal.” The signatories addressed their demands to “all peoples of Europe, all European political institutions including national governments, parliaments, [the] European Parliament, [the] European Commission, [the] Council of Europe and other relevant international bodies.” The Prague Declaration contains a list of demands, including compensation for victims. There are also calls for the establishment of a European “day of remembrance of the victims of both Nazi and Communist totalitarian regimes, in the same way Europe remembers the victims of the Holocaust on January 27th.” The Prague Declaration further advocates for the creation of a supranational “Institute for European Memory and Conscience” as well as increased support for memorials, museums, and national historical institutes charged with investigating the crimes of communism. Finally, the Prague Declaration demands the “adjustment and overhaul of European history textbooks so that children could learn and be warned about Communism and its crimes in the same way as they have been taught to assess the Nazi crimes.” Over the next four years, and against a backdrop of growing social unrest in response to the global financial crisis and Eurozone instability in Spain