Accessing Campscapes: Inclusive Strategies for Using European Conflicted Heritage

C-ACCESS aims to develop inclusive strategies to provide access to Nazi and Stalinist ‘campscapes’ as sites of remembrance, education, and research. Most of these have been demolished; others are either monumentalized without physical remnants or the history they stand for has been erased. Hence the challenge of a sustainable (re-)use of these often-contested ‘heritagescapes’ demands a transnational, interdisciplinary and integrated approach. Research questions include: How do we best valorize their dissonant heritage, given the multiplicity of users, memorial practices and visitor expectation, incorporate and display testimonial material of their problematic history, and preserve, use and add value to them? This project examines campscapes: Westerbork, Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka, Falstad, Jasenovac, Lety, and Jáchymov. The objectives are three-fold: to evaluate the cultural dynamics and narratives that have shaped the safeguarding and significance of these selected campscapes; to identify and analyze the ethics and practices of their preservation and presentation; and finally to develop state-of-the-art strategies and implement innovative tools which provide sustainable in-situ and virtual forms of investigation and representation. Through new transnational partnerships, outputs of the project include 1) publications and educational materials, 2) workshops and community interventions, 3) digital mapping and interactive display tools; these will unravel and problematize new physical evidence and heritage paradoxes, and stimulate further research, exchange, and debate. With relevant stakeholders, the project will share cutting-edge ways of increasing inclusivity and accessibility to European campscapes.

Duration 01/04/2016 – 31/03/2019
Project Topic REFLECTIVE-1-2014
Acronym iC-ACCESS (HERA.15.092)

Consortium members