Dresden's culture of remembrance
Reading and panel discussion
In Dresden, various sites commemorate the crimes of the Nazi dictatorship and the SED regime. There is always controversy and lively debate about the appropriate commemoration of the bombing of Dresden on 13 February 1945.
But what significance does remembering the past really have for the present?
How serious is the search for reconciliation and to what extent is it only a political instrument to cover up actual conflicts?
At the event, publicist Max Czollek will discuss the current culture of remembrance in Dresden with Dr Christina Ludwig, Director of the Dresden City Museum, and will also take up the current debate about the Leipzig railway station.
About the book
Max Czollek's legendary books Desintegriert Euch! and Gegenwartsbewältigung lustfully cast doubt on the German narratives from integration to Leitkultur. Sharp, shrewd and surprising at every turn, Versöhnungstheater closes this circle when it asks about the current memory of the crimes of the past. Since globally admired gestures of German self-assurance from the Warsaw genuflection to the Holocaust memorial, a lot has changed recently: The Berlin City Palace celebrates Prussia's kings, the new military budget conjures up a new era, and the Federal President thanks Germany for its "reconciliation" without being asked during a trip to Israel. Germany is once again a country, not least because it remembers the Holocaust in such an exemplary manner. Welcome to the theatre of reconciliation!
About the author
Max Czollek, born in 1987, is an author and lives in Berlin. He is co-editor of the magazine Yalta - Positions on the Jewish Present and was co-initiator of the Disintegration Congress 2016 as well as the Radical Jewish Culture Days 2017 at the Maxim Gorki Theatre. He has published three volumes of poetry, and Hanser has so far published his much-discussed essays Desintegriert euch! (2018), Gegenwartsbewältigung (2020) and Versöhnungstheater (ET: 23.01.2023). In spring 2022, Czollek was curator of the exhibition Revenge. History and Fantasy at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, whose accompanying volume was also published by Hanser.
Dr. Christina Ludwig
Christina Ludwig ist seit 2020 Direktorin des Stadtmuseums Dresden. In den vergangenen vier Jahren hatte Ludwig die Leitung des Naturalienkabinetts in Waldenburg bei Zwickau inne. Ihre Neukonzeption der dortigen Dauerausstellung wurde 2019 mit dem Sächsischen Museumspreis ausgezeichnet.
Christina Ludwig kam 1988 in Reichenbach zur Welt und studierte Volkskunde, Kulturgeschichte, Kunstgeschichte sowie Archäologie in Jena. Nach ihrem Studium war sie als Projektassistentin für ein Forschungsprojekt der Volkswagenstiftung tätig. Bevor Ludwig 2015 das Naturalienkabinett Waldenburg übernahm, war sie Stipendiatin im Programm „Museion 21 – Die Museumsakademie“ der Alfred Toepfer Stiftung.
An event organised by Volkshochschule Dresden in cooperation with the Bautzner Straße Dresden Memorial and Objekt klein a. The event is part of the series "Auseinandersetzungen zur Gegenwart des Antisemitismus". This measure is co-financed by tax funds on the basis of the budget passed by the Saxon state parliament.
