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Holocaust, Shoah, Hurban: Naming and commemorating the unspeakable
The words and names used to refer to events are important; they shape people's understanding of the notions they refer to, fix events in the collective memory, and define the necessary acts of commemoration and remembrance. This process is particularly sensitive when it comes to the Nazi regime and the antisemitic atrocities it perpetrated. The Nazis' obsession with race had many dimensions and applied to a wide range of people whom they considered detrimental to racial purity, in terms of both ethnicity ...
The impact of climate change on cultural heritage
Climate change, a global phenomenon, affects every aspect of our lives, including cultural heritage in both its forms – tangible and intangible. Extreme weather conditions expose these important elements of our cultural identity to serious threats. These threats must be addressed to protect valuable sites and preserve them for future generations. Research on climate change is not a novelty, but climate change as it relates to cultural heritage is a relatively new area of exploration and policy. The ...
International Holocaust Remembrance Day: The fragility of freedom
'Auschwitz didn't appear from nowhere', remarked Marian Turski, Holocaust survivor and child prisoner in the Auschwitz death camp, in January 2020 at the solemn ceremony on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The former Auschwitz prisoner described the path from tiny hardships in everyday life and growing discrimination and persecution laws, to the genocide of Jews, the Holocaust. The consecutive stages of shrinking freedom can be summarised as 10 stages of genocide, in a process that could ...
Situation sociale et professionnelle des artistes et des travailleurs des industries culturelles et créatives
Lors de la plénière de novembre II, le Parlement mettra aux voix le rapport d’initiative législative sur les industries culturelles et créatives. Ce rapport recommande de créer un cadre de l’Union et d’adopter une directive visant à rapprocher les dispositions nationales sur plusieurs questions qui concernent ces industries, comme la sécurité sociale ou certaines définitions.
Jewish cultural heritage in Europe: Preservation as a means for understanding
Jews have lived throughout Europe as an important minority for almost two thousand years, and their fate has varied from one period to another according to the changing political situation. Both their prosperity and their relatively peaceful enjoyment of some freedoms have, at times, suddenly been removed. Discrimination, expropriations, banishments, looting and even pogroms have been recurrent events in the lives of Europe's Jewish communities down through the centuries. The Holocaust, initiated ...
Museums, libraries and archives in the face of climate change challenges
Museums, together with archives, galleries and libraries (GLAM), are guardians of collective memory and cultural heritage. They take care of and protect artefacts of historic and artistic importance that testify to the evolution of humanity and its artistic and intellectual achievements. These artefacts have been collected and stored in museums and their reserves for future generations to enjoy, study and research. However, their future is at stake owing to climate change, global warming and unstable ...
Hearings of European Commissioners-designate: Iliana Ivanova - Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth
This Briefing concerns a portfolio change in the European Commission in mid-mandate and takes the same format and approach as those Briefings published in September 2019 to give Members of the European Ϸվ an overview of major issues of interest in the context of the Hearings of the Commissioners-designate.
Roma and Sinti Holocaust: Recognition, education and justice
On 27 January 1945, the Soviet Army liberated the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. Held on this date since 2002, International Holocaust Remembrance Day is a solemn occasion to commemorate the Jewish, Roma and Sinti victims of Nazi terror. Following a resolution of the European Ϸվ, a distinct European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day is marked every year on 2 August to commemorate the Roma uprising on that day in 1943, when prisoners of the 'Gypsy Camp' there fought almost bare-handed ...
Religious slaughter: Reconciling animal welfare with freedom of religion or belief
The protection of animals at the time of slaughter is regulated at EU level by Council Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009. The regulation states that all animals should be stunned prior to having their throats cut. However, in order to ensure that some religious communities can consume meat in accordance with their precepts, and on the basis of the fundamental right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, a possible derogation ...
Artificial intelligence in the context of cultural heritage and museums: Complex challenges and new opportunities
As digital technologies have been increasingly permeating our lives, artificial intelligence (AI) has gradually made it onto the scene too, but without much fanfare. This once daunting prospect has become a part of our lives even in domains that do not seem to belong to a futurist world, such as cultural heritage and museums. The results are both promising and surprising: reconstructing a piece of art, completing an unfinished composition of a great musician, identifying the author of an ancient ...