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The institution heads signed the declaration on the European Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Totalitarian Regimes.
The museum should honour the memory of the victims of totalitarian regimes, but it should also show younger generations the operations and crimes of communist and Nazi regimes, according to the declaration.
Mária Schmidt, who heads the House of Terror Museum in Budapest, said more institutions are expected to sign the declaration later. A number of institution heads were invited to the conference but could not attend, she added.
In a debate of the museum and the details of the launch of the joint project, most of the participants at the conference agreed that the peoples of Central Europe had suffered the most under totalitarian regimes and it was important to pass this historical experience on to the more fortunate citizens of Western European countries.
Siegfried Reiprich, who heads the Stiftung Sächsische Gedenkstätten zur Erinnerung an die Opfer politischer Gewaltherrschaft, a German foundation commemorating victims of totalitarianism, proposed the museum be located in Paris. But Rafal Rogulski, who heads European Network Remembrance and Solidarity, said a Central European city, such as Warsaw, would be an ideal location.
Ronaldas Racinskas, a representative of the Lithuanian government, warned against making too much of similarities between communist and Nazi regimes, explaining that this could offend public opinion in a Western Europe that never experienced communism as well as the sensitivity of Holocaust survivors.
Vasil Kadrinov, who heads the Hannah Arendt Centre in Sofia, said that dangerously few of today?s youth know about the crimes of the Nazi and communist regimes, thus it was important that the 10- to 12-year project produce visible results already in its first years.
Kadrinov suggested a travelling exhibition that could be transformed into a digital project in each country it visits.
The proposal was supported by most of the conference participants, but a decision on the matter was not yet taken.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
