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Memory

How societies organize the remembrance of past crimes

Memory is one of the pillars of transitional justice, which refers to the acknowledgment and consideration of past events, particularly injustices or human rights violations. Justice Info covers how societies organize the remembrance of past crimes, especially following trials or truth commissions.

In Switzerland, crimes committed against nomadic peoples (Yenish, Sinti and Manouche) have been recognised by the government as ‘crimes against humanity’. Photo: Yenish children play the schwyzerörgeli, a small accordion, in front of a vehicle parked in an encampment.

This was a “dark chapter in Swiss history”

On February 19, Switzerland admitted it committed a “crime against humanity” in removing thousands of Traveller children from their families over a period of 50 years. Adult Yenish and Sinti people were also victimized. This is the first time Switzerland has admitted commission of an international crime.

By Julia Crawford (Justice Info)

80 years on, remembrance starts for France’s “Nomads”

A Holocaust survivor shows the tattoo she received when she arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1943.

'Tell what happened to us': the last death camp survivors

Drawings of Azriel Bibliowicz and Ricardo Silva Romero, two Colombian writers.

Writing about crimes you can’t forget

In Liberia, a statue of Prince Y. Johnson has been erected in front of apartment blocks. A group of young people surround it, some sitting on the pedestal.

Prince Y. Johnson: The Great Escape

Portrait of Assumpta Mugiraneza, co-founder and director of the IRIBA Centre for Multimedia Heritage (Kigali, Rwanda).

Assumpta Mugiraneza: “The policy of memory in Rwanda must be reinvented, renegotiated”

A man looks at the names of genocide victims at the Mount Rebero memorial in Kigali.

At Rebero, political remembrance of the genocide

The plaque next to the

Bonaire: a history of slavery, a present of social inequalities

In memory of the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda, 30 years on. Photo: At the end of the commemorations, an elder leaves the Mayunzwe memorial and walks down the hill towards the village.

Mayunzwe remembers the "Calvary" of the Tutsis

Justice in Chile for Pinochet's crimes - Photo: Uruguayan demonstrators celebrate Pinochet's arrest in 1998.

Chile’s ‘Pinochet Cases’ at 25: an ongoing sea change

Herero genocide in Namibia - Propaganda painting showing German soldiers confronting Herero fighters.

A stroll into Germany’s conflicted postcolonial memory

Benjamin Ferencz, young prosecutor at the Nuremberg trial

Benjamin Ferencz: the man who sought peace through law

Inscription on a portal (in Arabic and French):

Adel Maizi: "Remembrance isn’t just about the past, it helps build the future"

A man walks in front of works of art exhibited at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (Netherlands)

Colonial racism catches up with Amsterdam Rijksmuseum

2 elderly people demonstrate (holding up pictures of Franco's victims), in the streets of Madrid (Spain)

Democratising and decolonising Spain: the limits of the new law on memory

Scene from the play

Tunisia: artists take up the torch of remembrance

Frederick Flick (owner of the Flick company) stands during his sentencing at the Nuremberg trial in Germany.

In Nuremberg, “we started to judge company executives and managers”

Black and white photo of a hospital bed (operating table type) in the 60-70s.

Denmark and Greenland confront a traumatic birth control campaign

Felix Tshisekedi and Denis Sassou Nguesso (foreground) attend the funeral ceremony of Patrice Lumumba (large portrait in background).

Lumumba's tooth is returned, while still waiting for truth