The Daily News, January 11 2012

Bulgaria’s parliament adopted on Wednesday a special declaration condemning the forcible assimilation of the country’s sizeable Turkish minority under communism.
 
The declaration specifically centred on the so-called “revival process” in the mid-1980s when Bulgaria’s ethnic Turks were forced to change their Muslim names to Bulgarian ones.
 
Those who refused to do so were jailed and many killed, sparking several deadly attacks in public places and straining relations between Bulgaria and Turkey.
 
Shortly before communism fell in 1989, the authorities opened the borders to those Bulgarian citizens of Turkish origin who wanted to emigrate to Turkey. Around 360,000 people left, 170,000 of whom later returned.
 
Their exodus, dubbed with some irony in Bulgaria the “Big Excursion,” was condemned on Wednesday by MPs as “a form of ethnic cleansing performed by the totalitarian regime.” The declaration called for those responsible for the “revival process” to be brought to justice and punished.
 
“The attempt to cover it up with a statute of limitations transfers the guilt from the concrete culprits to the whole Bulgarian people,” it added.
 
About 13 percent of Bulgaria’s current population of 7.3 million are Muslims, with most belonging to the ethnic Turkish minority.
 
A recent study found they were increasingly becoming less religious even if practising traditional rituals enthusiastically.

The Declaration Adopted in the National Assembly of Bulgaria Concerning the Forced Assimilation Process Implemented to the Muslim Bulgarians*
(January 11, 2012, Sofia)

• By addressing to the European and global notion and to the highest acquisitions of international law in the field of human rights and minority rights,
• By addressing to the European Convention of Human Rights and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,
• By expressing the distress caused by the Bulgarian judicial system’s disability to punish the responsible parties for the attempt of the forced assimilation process implemented to the Bulgarian Muslims during the 20 years’ time from the beginning of the democratic reform process, including the so called “Revival Process”,
• By stating our absolute belief regarding these kind of crimes are not due to statutory period of limitations.

We, the Members of Parliament of the 41st National Assembly declare;

1. We condemn vociferously the assimilation process implemented to the Muslim minority living in the Republic of Bulgaria, including the so called “Revival Process”, by the totalitarian communist regime.
2. We declare the expulsion of more than 360.000 Turkish descendant Bulgarian citizens from the country in 1989 as an act of ethnic cleansing committed by the totalitarian regime.
3. We invite the Bulgarian justice and the Attorney General of Republic of Bulgaria to make every effort necessary to finalize the case started against the offenders of the so called “Revival Process”. Efforts to cover this up by statutory prescription are shifting the blame on the Bulgarian people from the real perpetrator.

____

• The text of the Declaration had been taken from the website of the Blue Coalition and translated to English from Bulgarian unofficially, and also to English from its Turkish translation.

BBC World News, 16 January 2012

The heart of the former East German police state – the office of Stasi chief Erich Mielke – has been opened to the public in Berlin.

The original plush furnishings have been restored at “Haus 1″ – the former communist secret police headquarters, which is now a museum.

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 about 8,000 Stasi agents worked there, isolated from ordinary citizens.

Twenty-two years ago protesters stormed the HQ and saved many secret files.

The German state spent about 11m euros (£9m; $14m) renovating the GDR (German Democratic Republic) Ministry for State Security, which covers about 20 hectares (50 acres).

Mielke’s restored office includes an oil painting by his favourite artist, Wolfgang Frankenstein, and a large television made by the Dutch firm Philips – a luxury that normal GDR citizens could only dream of. He ran the Stasi from 1957 to 1989.

There are also GDR-built electric typewriters and Mielke’s highly polished desk.

Mielke, who died in 2000, served two years in prison (1993-95) for the 1931 murder of two police officers.

The Stasi Records Office says 460 museum visitors made requests to see their Stasi files on Saturday.

Since the files were opened to the public about 2.8 million people have made such requests.

Computers are being used to piece together the files that the Stasi tried to destroy before the GDR collapsed.

In total 15,500 sacks each containing up to 80,000 bits of paper were recovered, the AFP news agency reports.

Link to the museum site

A commission set up by the Spanish government has recommended that the remains of General Francisco Franco should be exhumed.

The dictator’s tomb is inside a Catholic basilica, at a politically divisive civil war memorial.

The site, near Madrid, has been a rallying point for the far right.

The commission said the remains of Gen Franco – who ruled between 1936 and his death in 1975 – should be handed over to his family for reburial.

The vast site, known as the Valley of the Fallen, contains mass graves with the remains of 34,000 people from both sides killed in Spain’s 1936-1939 civil war.

It features a 150m cross that can be seen from miles around.

The report says Franco’s remains should be removed because he did not die in the war.

The general died of natural causes at the age of 82.

The general commissioned the giant monument, which is carved into the side of a mountain, to commemorate his victory over the Republicans in the civil war.

Until a law was passed in 2007 banning demonstrations at the site, the Valley of the Fallen had seen crowds of supporters gather on the anniversary of Franco’s death in November.

The commission was set up by Spain’s outgoing socialist government.

Correspondents say the centre-right Popular Party, which will take office on 22 December after winning general elections earlier this month, is less likely to support the commission’s conclusions.

A commission member said the report’s release had been delayed until after the election because of the site’s sensitivity.

General Franco’s family has previously said they would be opposed to his body being removed from the Valley of the Fallen.

 Multi Media

Photographs from the Hearing
EPPpress release
EPP TV coverage
Latvian TV

Materials from the Hearing

please note that not all the presentations are available

Agenda
Video address from the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek
MEP Sandra Kalniete’s speech, Chair of the hearing and Chair of the Reconciliation of European Histoires Group
Presentation by Carlos Closa Montero, CSIC, Institute of Public Goods and Policy
Presentation by Ineta Ziemele, Judge at the European Court of Human Rights
Presentation by Vinko Gorenak, Slovenian MP, SDS political party, President of the Committee on Internal Politics, Public Management and Legal Affairs
Presentation by Zofia Woycicka, Scientist and Member of the set-up-team for the House of European History (in Polish)
PPT by Zofia Woycicka
Presentation by Daniel Herman, Director of the Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes
Speech by Egidijus Meilūnas, vice-minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Lithuania

As the June 3rd 2008 Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism and the April 2nd 2009 European Parliament resolution on European conscience and totalitarianism have been highly noteworthy milestones in our work, the October 14th 2011 founding of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience will no doubt be another. The European Parliament resolution of 2 April 2009 clearly highlights the need “to strengthen European awareness of crimes committed by totalitarian and undemocratic regimes, documentation of, and accounts testifying to, Europe’s troubled past must be supported, as there can be no reconciliation without remembrance.” For this reason this Platform is so important, because the preservation of these memories and values bring Europe closer to a stronger union and a reconciliation with its past. Yet the potential of this Platform is even greater because it provides a European network for national organizations working on the preservation of the memory of the crimes committed by totalitarian regimes and substantially strengthens the horizontal connections of European history. Reconciliation of European Histories group considers the Platform of European Memory and Conscience as an important platform for cooperation to achieve the reunification of European history based on truth and remembrance.

Heads of 19 partner institutions and organisations specialised in the subject of totalitarian history from 13 EU

In November 2008, a permanent working group on the Platform of European Memory and Conscience was established as a joint initiative of the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic and the Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. The Institute has been coordinating the working group since then. The foundation of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience was supported by the European Parliament in its resolution of 2 April 2009 on European conscience and totalitarianism which called for “the establishment of a Platform of European Memory and Conscience to provide support for networking and cooperation among national research institutes specialising in the subject of totalitarian history, and for the creation of a pan-European documentation centre/memorial for the victims of all totalitarian regimes.“ 

The Platform of European Memory and Conscience received further endorsement from the General Affairs and External Relations Council during the Czech Presidency of the EU on 15 June, 2009, from the Justice and Home Affairs Council during the Hungarian Presidency of the EU on 9-10 June, 2011 and in the Warsaw Declaration adopted by the Justice and Home Affairs Council during the Polish Presidency of the EU on 23 August, 2011. 

In its Report to the Parliament and the Council “The memory of the crimes committed by totalitarian regimes in Europe“ of 22 December, 2010, the European Commission presents the Platform of European Memory and Conscience as an important European initiative. As the Commission explains, “Bringing together all actors from all Member States, including academic and independent researchers and experts, in order to exchange experiences, analysis and best practices, including on how Member States promote collective memory through educational curricula, is a way to contribute to promote awareness and exchange of experiences in this area.“ 

The Constituting meeting of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience will be hosted by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. The solemn signing of the founding document will take place on 14 October, 2011 at 2.30 p.m. in the Lichtenstein Palace in Prague as an accompanying event of the summit of the Prime ministers of the Visegrad group. The ceremony will be opened by Mr Petr Nečas, Prime minister of the Czech Republic and Mr László Tökés, Vice-President of the European Parliament and leader of the democratic revolution of 1989 in Romania.

The Platform of European Memory and Conscience brings together governmental and non-governmental institutions and organisations active in research, documentation, awareness raising and education about totalitarian regimes. The work of the Platform will initially encompass meetings and conferences, several publications, a survey, a travelling exhibition on totalitarianism in Europe and an award to personalities who have set a mark in resisting and working against totalitarianism in Europe. The founding members, who are also signing an ethics code, extend an invitation to like-minded institutions and organisations from further European countries to join them in their endeavour.   

Contact:

Dr. Neela Winkelmann
Executive manager for European affairs
Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes
Siwiecova 2, 130 00 Praha 3, Czech Republic
tel.: +420 – 221 008 318
e-mail: neela.winkelmannova@ustrcr.cz 

Founding members of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience:

Bulgaria: Hannah Arendt Center Sofia
Czech Republic: Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, Security Services Archive
Estonia: Estonian Institute of Historical Memory, Unitas Foundation
Germany: The Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR, Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial, Hannah Arendt Society Köln
Hungary: The Public Foundation for the Research of Central and East European History and Society – House of Terror Museum
Latvia: The Occupation Museum Association of Latvia
Lithuania: International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, The Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania
Netherlands: Foundation History of Totalitarian Regimes and their Victims
Poland: Institute of National Remembrance, Warsaw Rising Museum
Romania: Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile
Slovakia: Jan Langos Foundation
Slovenia: Study Centre for National Reconciliation
Sweden: The Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism

Some of the goals of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience:
- to increase public awareness about European history and crimes committed by totalitarian regimes and encourage a broad, European-wide discussion about the causes and consequences of totalitarian rule, as well as about common European values, with the aim of promoting human dignity and human rights;
- to contribute toward deepening the integration of all European citizens, furthering the respect and understanding of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in all of Europe with the goal of avoiding future threats to democracy.

 *The Constituting meeting and initial work of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience have been kindly supported by a grant from the International Visegrad Fund (www.visegradfund.org).

UPDATE: Press release on the establishment of the Platform

Press Release: http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2011-09/cp110095en.pdf

Judgment: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:62010TJ0232:EN:HTML

Admittedly, opening this sensitive topic in the societies which have not yet reached reconciliation is a delicate matter, and as these issues are perceived to be political, not national, their resolution is not intense enough despite the fact that European institutions, too, have adopted enough initiatives and guidelines for resolving the crimes committed in the totalitarian regimes.

It is well known that Slovenia survived as many as three totalitarian rules in the 20th century: fascism, Nazism and communism. Each of them was genocidal: fascism was above all culturocidal, Nazism ethnocidal and to communism – especially in the earliest periods – I ascribe political genocide as it was physically destroying ‘class enemies’ or political adversaries.

While victims of fascism and Nazism were recognised, and injustices repaired to the highest extent possible, the victims of communism were kept secret until the mid-1980’s, public discussion about this topic was forbidden, and perpetrators of mass murders and surviving victims, their relatives and possible eye-witnesses were sworn to strict silence. Slovenians therefore hadn’t learned about the real dimension of post-war killings until the advent of democracy, when more than 600 hundred mass graves (!) were discovered on the relatively small territory of Slovenia – which we like to describe to foreigners as heaven on Earth on the sunny side of the Alps. For the sake of comparison: in much larger Serbia, 200 hundred such grave sites were discovered, the resting place of 25,000 opponents of communism killed by the newly established authorities in 1944 and 1945. Some Slovenian mass graves conceal the remains of thousands of members of various military formations and people labelled as political adversaries. The recently discovered Huda Jama cave also contains bodies of brutally killed women, the wounded and young people. It is practically impossible to articulate the feelings one experiences when seeing the shocking remains of bodies, braids of women’s hair…

In addition to 15,000 Slovenians of both genders, according to the most conservative estimates, the territory of the present-day Slovenia is also the final resting place of around 100,000 Germans, Croats, Serbs, Italians, Russians and members of other nationalities.

As early as 1993 the Slovenian Parliament set up a fact-finding committee, chaired by Dr. Jože Pučnik, himself once a victim of repression and a well-known dissident, which made important steps forward, but the left-wing political majority obstructed the adoption of the committee’s report. Afterwards, Slovenian politics did not have the willpower to continue this work, to find the way and establish legal frameworks for a respectful attitude towards and dignified remembrance of all those killed in the so-called out-of-court killings after the victory of the communist revolution. All attempts at finding a compromise among political parties regarding adoption of a proper resolution failed miserably. And if the first step is missing, others cannot follow. This pathological reflex is undoubtedly the consequence of damaged mentality from the old days, and is characteristic of political elites as well.

It is sad that young people do not know enough history, and particularly the part of history this writing is about. They might have heard of the holocaust, but don’t know of gulags, Huda Jama, Katyn, Stalin, etc. In one survey they identified Hitler as a German football coach; in Slovenia and in the Balkans Tito is considered to be an idol like Che Guevara.

How could Slovenia and other countries with similar problems permanently resolve this issue? In the short term and on the operative level it is politics that must accomplish certain tasks. Firstly, it should – with a general measure, a suitable resolution, for instance – demonstrate positive determination to have the issue resolved. The judicial system should determine the nature of those crimes and decide on the way of repairing the wrongs, executive policies should keep uncovering the mass graves and ensure the construction of ossuaries, museums, monuments and other memorials so that the murdered can be buried with piety in order to restore the dignity of those killed.

In the long term, a key role should be played by scientific and educational systems, which must research, discover and evaluate this concealed part of our past. Young people should be educated in the spirit of democratic culture and human values in order to be able to distinguish between what is acceptable and what must be rejected. To this aim curricula should be updated, and these topics included in school manuals in an adequate way. Only through proper acquisition of this knowledge can we provide a lasting cultural background which will make it impossible for totalitarianisms and their crimes ever to return.

To conclude – if we refuse to look back and face the consequences of false beliefs, we are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past. And Antigone – metaphorically speaking – will keep looking for a way to bury her brother in accordance with existing civilisation norms.

download the document

At the opening of the plenary session, the Members of the European Parliament commemorated 70 years from the first mass deportations from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, conducted by the Soviet Union.

In his statement, the President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek stressed that we need to remember many thousands of victims in the Baltic States which had been occupied since 1940 by the Soviet Union.   (see the full video of debate in the Plenary)

“Full knowledge of these massive crimes against humanity should become an integral part of the common European history because only in this way can United Europe send a message of “Never Again” to tens of thousands of victims and their descendants,” said Tunne Kelam speaking on behalf of the EPP Group. 

“Thousands of victims of the 1941 and the following massive political repressions had to live for decades with the feeling that justice will never prevail”,  said Kelam

“Whereas European public awareness of these crimes is still inadequate, the remembrance of 70 years from the first mass deportations from the Baltic states is an opportunity and incentive for a deepened understanding that “your past is our past” and vice versa.  The full knowledge of 1941 deportations should become an integral part of our common European history, ” Tunne Kelam MEP concluded. 

About 50.000 Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian nationals were deported to Siberia on June 14th, 1941, by the Soviet Union.  In Tunne Kelam’s words, proportionally this would mean 432.000 citizens deported from the UK, or 363.000 persons deported from France.

The European Commission in its 2010 report stresses that “the memory of the horrors of the past must be a shared endeavour for all in the European Union”.