On 15 May 2024, the annual Platform of European Memory and Conscience convention was opened in Vilnius, with Deputy President Prof. Karol Polejowski representing the Institute of National Remembrance, the Platform founding member.
To this non-governmental organization belong nearly 70 public and private institutions and organizations from 23 countries, set on disseminating knowledge about totalitarian regimes, facilitating research, commemorating victims and exposing perpetrators. Their representatives turned up in Lithuania to discuss collaboration, plan joint projects, but also talk on key remembrance issues in today’s world.
The first convention day saw the "Crimes of Totalitarianism – Justice and Remembrance in the XXI Century" conference, hosted by the National Art Gallery, and the IPN Deputy President sat on a panel devoted to the role of memory spaces in preserving historical remembrance, and their significance as vehicles of justice. Prof. Polejowski brought up the issue of the Institute ongoing decommunization campaign, initiated and overseen by the IPN President Karol Nawrocki, which has been removing the physical remnants of the communist regime for over two years now.
The most important memory space is the public space. In the course of our decommunization campaign, intensified especially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have removed 46 such objects, and this initiative started by Karol Nawrocki has had an impact on other countries. Russia has put Mr. Nawrocki, Estonian Prime Mininster Kaja Kallas and other people on its wanted list, but we’d rather commemorate the victims of the Soviet occupation than the Soviet occupation, said the IPN Deputy President Prof. Karol Polejowski.
The Institute delegation also screened a video summarizing the campaign targets and accomplishments, very well received by the audience.