Remembering to forget: commemoration of atrocities in the Baltic states

Abstract

This paper revisits the controversies surrounding commemoration of the Second World War in the Baltic states and explores the difficulties of translating the complexities and ambivalences of history, personal experience, and memory into monolithic statues and acts of commemoration. In particular, the Baltic states are faced with the difficult challenge of commemorating the atrocities of two dictatorships and are failing to meet that challenge. A fundamental impediment to such collective remembrance and commemoration is the breadth and depth of historical displacement and suffering of different ethnic communities. The lack of commemoration of two marginalized groups, namely, the Roma and psychiatric patients is also examined.