Where would we be without memories? They are central elements of a biographical construction of meaning and identity and hold our life world together. But what happens when memories are painful? What if they are connected with traumas that go back to state injustice and are perhaps not even expressible?

Memories are always individual and social at the same time; they are based on personal experiences whose narrative is shaped and also changed in a social context. What happens when the context changes and what was long repressed becomes public discourse? When survivors become contemporary witnesses in public?

Three experts who have conducted biographical interviews in very different historical contexts will discuss this:

Panelists

• The social anthropologist Anna Fersztand lived with her grandfather, the Holocaust survivor Jakob Fersztand, during Corona and made a short film about it.
• The historian Loretta Seglias was head of research at the UEK Administrative Versorgungen and realised the project “Faces of Memory” together with victims of compulsory social measures.
• The religious educator and youth worker Stefan Heinichen is a member of the Federal Commission against Racism. As part of a working group, he developed the teaching material “Jenische, Sinti, Roma – Zuwenig bekannte Minderheiten in der Schweiz” (Yenish, Sinti, Roma – Too little known minorities in Switzerland).

Moderator
Gregor Spuhler