crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
8. Specific measures for the EU
The EU could help spread the word about such examples, and support cross-border exhibitions and
screenings where these are wanted. In line with its goal of peaceful togetherness in the broader Europe,
it could link the past with the present in a reconciling way, help people to understand the historical scars
of the other, make them cross mental and physical borders, by:
– Providing more and better mobility schemes;
– Easing visa conditions for Europe’s neighbours;
– Giving even more incentives for cross-border (especially West-East) cooperation, and for such
joint working processes as the forthcoming youth-video ‘Stranger Festival’ (www.
strangerfestival.com);
– Extending more and sustained support for information tools that facilitate cross-border
cooperation: a unique example deserving greater EU support is LabforCulture (www.labforculture.
org), initiated by the European Cultural Foundation (www.eurocult.org) and realised through
a public-private partnership; LabforCulture has recently set up an artists‐curated interactive
platform called ‘Victims Symptom’ (www.victims.labforculture.org) which deals graphically and
reflectively with various forms of oppression, humiliation, fear, discrimination and fanaticism;
– Increasing its cultural budget in close cooperation with other Commission departments.
It remains to be seen how forward-looking will be the secretariat of the Task Force for International
Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (created in March 2008, and
composed of public and private representatives of 25 EU Members thus far) and to what extent it will
be able to enter into a constructive dialogue with central European countries that are less occupied with
the Holocaust than with the crimes of the Soviet (especially Stalin) era.
The handling of past totalitarian crimes must not lead to a new divide between East and West in
Europe: that would be tragic. In a meeting in Warsaw in April 2008, I was met with accusations from
many Central European voices along the lines of: “You have worked on ‘your holocaust’ for many years
and have now developed a certain emotional distance, you are only preoccupied with yourselves, but
our Soviet-caused wounds are still bleeding, and you (Western Europeans) are not willing to accept this
fact.” Let us take such comments seriously.
Humiliation, fear, discrimination, fanaticism will not disappear from this earth. But we can all help
a little to ensure that fewer people will say: “Oh, you are German, Russian, Serbian, Chinese, Japanese,
American, Bolivian … but you are quite nice.” In order to approach this goal (without ever reaching it
fully) let’s follow the principle of the musical My Fair Lady: “Don’t say it, do it.”
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