The congress of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience (PEMC), organised by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), took place in Warsaw from 5 to 7 December 2023. The Platform brings together nearly 70 public and private institutions and organisations from 20 countries active in research, documentation, awareness-raising, and education about the totalitarian regimes that affected Europe in the 20th century.

During the first day of the PEMC congress, a discussion on “Decommunization and Transitional Justice” took place, focusing on the politics of remembrance. Transitional justice is an issue that recurs again and again in discussions between historians and politicians.

As the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) points out, there has never been a fully satisfactory accounting of the crimes of totalitarian regimes anywhere. The legacy of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe is being dealt with particular difficulty, both in terms of justice for the perpetrators and reparations for the victims and justice in the symbolic space (commemorations, naming, etc.).

Whichever latitude the communist system touches and whatever forms it takes, it is still a threat. The essence of this system is to destroy everything that touches identity, values important to our nations, to such an extent that it is not enough for this system only to eliminate them physically, but also to eliminate them deeply from consciousness”, emphasised Dr Karol Nawrocki, President of the IPN, during the discussion.

On the second day of the congress, two panel discussions were held. The discussion ‘Trails of Hope. Odyssey of Freedom” started from the experience of the collective “odyssey” of Poles during World War II. The second panel “The Righteous” dealt with the issue of helping Jews during the Second World War. The starting point was the story of the Ulma family (beatified on 10 September 2023), which is an important topic in the Polish politics of remembrance.

Adrian Andrzejewski