MultiMemo
The Heidelberb University of Jewish Studies has been an associated partner and consortium member of the international MultiMemo project since 2022. The project is funded by the EU Commission as part of its Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Program (CERV) with a focus on European Remembrance.
The MultiMemo project follows an intersectional approach in the field of remembrance research and memory studies. This approach emphasizes the importance of memory for social justice and for addressing current challenges related to human rights violations, military conflicts and violence, social exclusion and the migration crisis. On the scientific basis of the concept of "multidirectional memory", the project researches and initiates a variety of forms of active commemoration in public space in several European countries with a particular geographical focus on Eastern Central Europe.
The starting point of MultiMemo is the difficult legacy of the Second World War in East Central Europe, with the research focus on contexts of multiple exclusion in which the trauma of the Holocaust intersects with other forms of persecution and exclusion (e.g. antiziganism, queer hostility). These contexts often also represent a point of contact and confrontation with the most recent legacy of totalitarianism in East Central Europe - National Socialism and Communism. At this interface, MultiMemo makes an important contribution against anti-Semitism and other forms of group-related misanthropy, against the falsification and suppression of history.
The MultiMemo project complements and expands the activities of the Zapomniane Foundation's ongoing CERV project Negotiating Difficult Pasts (NeDiPa). The core objectives of the research consortium are to promote a practice-based and inclusive culture of remembrance, innovative cooperation strategies and a multidisciplinary approach to building a European historical community that combines civic engagement, science, art and remembrance.
In addition to the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien, the following universities, NGOs and centers are members of the MultiMemo research consortium:
- FestivALT (Poland)
- Fundacja Urban Memory (Poland)
- Fundacja Zapomniane (Poland)
- JCC Warsaw Foundation (Poland)
- A Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe - CEJI (Belgium)
- Fundacja Dokumentacji Cmentarzy Zydowskich (Poland)
- Fundacja Formy Wspolne (Poland)
- Center for Urban History of East Central Europe (Ukraine)
- University of Würzburg (Germany)
