The truth about the victims of totalitarian regimes as a value for contemporary European civilisation

‘Commemorating the victims of totalitarian systems is not only an act of justice but also a way to fight for the soul of Europe. Europe as a community will not exist if there is no community and no memory of the victims,’ argues Marek MUTOR

.To begin with, I would like to share a reflection on the commemorations marking the anniversary of the Polish bishops’ Letter to the German bishops. Ten years ago, many people who are no longer with us today were still here. Among others, I would like to acknowledge Father Jan Krucina, a very close associate of Bishop Bolesław Kominek, who provided many clues that helped us gain reliable knowledge and access numerous materials for our work. At the same time, I would like to emphasise that the present commemorations are, for me, exceptionally encouraging. I believe we can say with pride that here, in Wrocław, we are winning the battle for memory. This is extraordinary. We succeed, even though we constantly face new challenges.

When in 2009, Wojciech Kucharski and I travelled around Poland to popularise this subject, not many people attended the meetings. I believe one reason for the current change is that knowledge has expanded significantly. Thanks to the support of many people, we have been able to establish a research community and make numerous discoveries. I will give just one example: in 2009 we merely suspected that Bishop Kominek was the author of the Letter. Today we know this for certain. This is thanks to Wojciech and the entire team who worked on the matter. It fills me with a deep sense of gratitude and satisfaction.

The subject of my presentation is the activity of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience, an organisation that I have the honour to chair. It is a non-governmental association that operates in 23 countries and brings together memory institutions from both European Union member states and other countries. Our focus is on commemorating the victims of totalitarian regimes in Europe. While this our main activity, we also advocate bringing perpetrators of crimes to justice. Unfortunately, in many cases this is becoming increasingly difficult due to the passage of time.

Our strategic objective for the coming years is to establish in Brussels a pan-European place of remembrance for the victims of totalitarian regimes, alongside a documentation centre. We have been presenting this project across Europe – at the Bundestag, several times at the European Parliament, in the Czech and Lithuanian parliaments, as well as at numerous conferences around the world. I am honoured to be able to present it here in Wrocław as well.

I regard the fact that we are meeting during the anniversary commemorations of the Bishops’ Letter as a special sign – a sign for Europe. After all, the Letter contains many references to a difficult history and to the fate of the victims of a totalitarian system: Polish citizens who fell victim to German Nazi totalitarianism. Allow me to quote briefly: “A terribly dark night descended upon our poor Homeland, the like of which we had not experienced for generations. We were all powerless and defenceless. (…) The country was filled with concentration camps, the chimneys of which smoked day and night with the fumes of the crematoria. During the period of occupation, more than six million Polish citizens, most of whom were of Jewish origin, lost their lives. The leading stratum of the intelligentsia was destroyed.” The powerlessness and vulnerability referred to here are precisely the conditions experienced by a person living under a totalitarian regime.

The Letter refers to the Polish experience, but this is by no means unique to Poland. Consider twentieth-century Europe, for example: two wars and the rule of totalitarian systems were shared experiences of many nations. German Nazism and Soviet communism permanently changed the face of the continent and brought suffering to millions of people. The ideological differences between these two systems did not prevent their cooperation, which set the Second World War in motion.

We can therefore state that almost every European family has experienced the consequences of totalitarian systems or their milder authoritarian variants. Europeans lived through the Second World War, which was unleashed by these systems; civil wars, such as in Spain; Nazism; communism; and Italian fascism. They also experienced the consequences of pseudoscientific ideologies, such as eugenics, not only in the Third Reich, but also in Sweden, for example. We are speaking here of numerous crimes against humanity – crimes which are not time-barred under international law.

People were dying everywhere. This is the defining feature of totalitarianism: people are killed simply for belonging to a particular national, religious or social group or for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The nations of Europe endured years, and sometimes generations, of subjugation. The universality of this experience, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, makes it one of the foundations of European memory. Commemorating the victims of totalitarian systems is not only an act of justice but also a way to fight for the soul of Europe. Europe – as a community – will not exist if there is no community and no memory of the victims.

This conviction lies at the heart of the project that I would now like to present to you. Why should there be a place of remembrance, and why should it be in Brussels? First, we owe this to the victims. Second, Brussels is perceived as the heart of political and institutional Europe. Third, it is a matter of Europe’s identity.

This memory is also important for contemporary reasons: to strengthen the resilience of European societies, heighten their sensitivity to human rights and make them more resistant to anti-democratic tendencies. Another reason is the ongoing war – albeit outside the European Union – launched by Russia against Ukraine, rooted in totalitarian thinking.  Put somewhat simplistically, had Soviet communism been properly addressed in the international arena, this war would have been more difficult to initiate, and it would have been harder to conduct business with a former KGB officer at the head of a state. The Nazi system was formally judged in Nuremberg; the communist system never underwent such a reckoning.

The project I am presenting implements the resolution on European conscience and totalitarianism, in which the European Parliament called for the establishment of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience and for the construction of a monument or documentation centre dedicated to the victims of all totalitarian systems. The Platform was established in 2011. Efforts to create a place of remembrance began in 2017, with an international design competition for the monument being announced at that time. The jury included Norman Foster and other prominent figures from the world of architecture, as well as historians and Platform representatives. The winning design was submitted by Tszwai So, a London-based architect of Chinese origin. As a child, he fled China with his family and has since pursued his education and professional career in the United Kingdom.

In 2019, the European Parliament adopted another resolution on the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe. This resolution also referred to our project, emphasising the need for support from the Member States and the Commission. So far, this support has not come to fruition, although we have received backing from the government of the Czech Republic. We are pinning our hopes on the Lithuanian presidency in 2027. Recent weeks have shown that the Lithuanians are taking this issue very seriously and intend to include it in the agenda of their presidency. The matter has been raised with the President of Lithuania, who is encouraging other countries to support the initiative. This creates a great opportunity for the project and demonstrates the Lithuanian elites’ broad European perspective, as they clearly understand the importance of initiatives of this kind in the face of hybrid threats from the Russian Federation.

The concept of the place of remembrance is based on the idea of an imagined ‘messenger’ or ‘angel’ who appears in the centre of Brussels and scatters messages from the past. These messages are authentic letters written by victims in the Gulag, concentration camps and prisons. They will be reproduced on concrete slabs and arranged to create the impression that they have fallen from the sky and are scattered across the square. There will be no figurative representation; this is why we prefer to speak of a place of remembrance rather than a monument. The location under consideration is a section of the Esplanade Solidarność in the immediate vicinity of the European Parliament. We have already collected tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of such letters. For the purpose of the exhibition, a careful selection will be made.

Interestingly, the initial selection revealed that individuals who were able to write from a place of detention often addressed their letters to their mothers. Psychologically, this is understandable – a mother is the giver of life and is associated with safety in a situation of threat. From thousands of letters, we will select around seven hundred that will allow us to present a wide range of experiences, nationalities, languages and the situations in which prisoners found themselves. This is very important because the project has attracted a great deal of debate, and the ability to present diverse stories will certainly help resolve many of the controversies surrounding it, starting with how totalitarianism is perceived in different parts of Europe. For some of our interlocutors, acknowledging communism as a totalitarian system is problematic. Our position is clear: we refer to classical definitions and the academic work of scholars such as Professor Stéphane Courtois. In our part of Europe, communism took a totalitarian form and resulted in the deaths of many people.

In the debates we organise, the uniqueness of the Holocaust is also questioned in the context of the place of remembrance presenting different experiences of encounters with totalitarianism. However, in our opinion, the uniqueness of the Shoah unquestionably requires emphasis. In my view, this does not stand in contradiction to including other experiences of the victims of totalitarian regimes within a single place of remembrance.

The very idea of walking over the letters is sometimes met with resistance, too, since these letters are most often the last trace of people who perished. This is controversial, but after all, in a symbolic – and sometimes very real – sense, we are constantly walking over places where others once lived and died. People may pass by indifferently, but one day, someone may look down and be prompted to reflect.

Another important element of the project will be the documentation centre. The letters will be enlarged and ‘printed in concrete’ to imitate the original handwriting. Each letter will be accompanied by a QR code or another technological solution that will allow visitors to transition from the physical to the digital space – they will be able to find transcriptions in all languages, learn the stories of the individuals concerned and access archival and educational materials.

.While the project is widely discussed, its substantive content and overall concept enjoy strong support in the European Parliament. This support is primarily driven by Poles and Lithuanians, as well as Czechs, though not only by them. One of the project’s most important advocates is Bernard Guetta, a French Member of the European Parliament who was a correspondent for Le Monde in Poland in the 1980s. The idea is gaining support: a letter to the authorities in Brussels has already been signed by over 70 Members of the European Parliament from almost all parliamentary groups, excluding the extreme factions. This gives us hope that the project will be realised. I believe this initiative offers us a way to come to terms with past traumas, as well as strengthen the resilience of European societies against future challenges.

Marek Mutor

A speech delivered at an academic conference organised by the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Wrocław on the 60th anniversary of the Polish bishops’ Letter to the German bishops.