A Belated but Necessary Recognition: The Victims of Nazism and Stalinism
A Belated but Necessary Recognition: The Victims of Nazism and Stalinism
Since 2009, the European Union has recognised 23 August as the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism. This date commemorates the day on which the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed between Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, which agreed on non-aggression between the two countries and secretly divided the European continent into two distinct zones of influence.
However, 23 August was chosen not to commemorate the Pact itself but to remind citizens of the consequences of this fateful agreement: a world war that led to the commission of the most heinous crimes seen in Europe to date. With this day, the European Union aims to “preserve the memory of the victims of mass deportations and exterminations, and at the same time rooting democracy more firmly and reinforcing peace and stability in our continent” .
For years, particularly during the Cold War, Europe’s memory focused on the Holocaust and its victims. The continent had not known a genocide of such magnitude, and it gradually shed light on the events experienced by the Jewish population, prosecuting those most responsible in the renowned Nuremberg Trials, drafting compensation and rehabilitation laws, and giving recognition to the victims through a culture of commemoration in monuments, museums, television and literary works.
This was not the case for the victims of Stalinism, who did not receive the same attention until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. With the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic and the collapse of the Soviet regime, the atrocities that had hitherto been silenced were revealed: torture, enforced disappearances, and deportations to labour and extermination camps.
Although the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe had already equated the crimes of Nazism with those committed by ‘totalitarian communist’ regimes in its Resolution 1481 of 2006, the end of the lack of recognition of the victims of Stalinism came with the Prague Declaration in 2008 on European Conscience and Communism Conference.
This declaration, pioneered by the Czech government, was the result of a meeting between European politicians, former political prisoners, and historians who demanded the condemnation of Stalinist crimes and the education of the population about what happened under the Stalinist yoke. The most notable aspect of the Declaration was the establishment of the day we commemorate today, the European Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Stalinism and Nazism.
Thus, the door was definitively opened to the remembrance and recognition of the victims of both regimes, and the European Parliament began to include this trend in many of its resolutions dedicated to memory and education about European history. Its Resolution on European Conscience and Totalitarianism, from April 2009, states that Europe will not be united unless a common view of its history is established, recognizing Nazism and Stalinism as a shared legacy. In its Resolution on the Importance of European remembrance for the Future of Europe, from September 2019, the European Parliament emphasises that it remains necessary to raise awareness and educate the public about the crimes committed by Stalinism and to conduct a moral and legal evaluation, while also investigating them judicially. Finally, its Resolution on European Historical Consciousness, from January 2024, expresses the Parliament’s concern that incompatibility still exists in the different frameworks of memory in Europe, while recognising the crimes committed by the totalitarian Nazi, fascist, and communist regimes.
In today’s Europe, where extremisms similar to those that favoured the emergence of a black stain in European and world history are on the rise, it is more crucial than ever to remember and educate the public not only about the crimes perpetrated under the Nazi and Stalinist yokes, but also about the causes that allowed these regimes to rise to power and the consequences they had on the Europe we know today.
Therefore, at FIBGAR, we are launching the free online course “MEM4EU: Democratic Memory for European Youth”, where you can learn about the different regimes that dominated Europe in the 20th century, the European Union as a peace project, the memory policies promoted in Europe, how Spain is faring in its struggle for democratic memory, and the anti-democratic threats facing Europe.
Nadia Gayoso de la Calle, Junior Project Manager.
23 August 2024
