Events

This page will collect all events creating an alternative culture of remembrance about 8/9 of May. If you want us to add your event, please fill in the form:

A list of already announced events:

Demokrati-JA

MAY 

8-9 мая

Demokrati-JA
Treptower Park

Reclaiming Remembrance: From 1945 to 2024

On the 8th and 9th of May we gather in Treptow Park to honour the memory of the defenders of Europe from the German fascism and the huge number of victims of the bloodiest war in the history of mankind, which ended 79 years ago. But at the same time we cannot forget that right now war is raging again, and every day we learn about new victims of the horrific bloodbath that another fascist dictatorship, this time Russian, has perpetrated in Ukraine.

Our goals:
To gather like-minded people, to provide a platform for those who, like us, strongly condemn Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, who in the context of the current events are trying to find new forms of commemoration of the past war without any victory-craze, to express our unconditional solidarity with Ukraine and our faith in its victory.

In the programme:
Commemoration wall with photos from family/people’s archives, exhibition of the crimes of Soviet/Russian regimes and of various destroyed Ukrainian cities. On the 9th of May starting from 3pm: speeches, poetry readings and musical performances.

MAY 

8. Mai 10:00 – 21:00 Uhr

9. Mai 10:00 – 18:00 Uhr
BERLIN-KARLSHORST

Programme for the 79th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe

Wednesday, 8 May 2024, 10 am-9 pm

World War II in Europe ended in the building of the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst on the night of 8 to 9 May 1945. The commanders-in-chief of the Wehrmacht surrendered unconditionally to all four victorious powers: the Soviet Union, the USA, Great Britain and France.

2024 marks the 79th anniversary of this historic event. The museum organises a special programme every year on 8 May. The focus is on commemorating the liberation from National Socialism and individual remembrance of the victims of German crimes during the Second World War.

Free entry

Reading café – The end of the war in Europe in international newspapers
10 am-6.30 pm

The news of the capitulation of the German Reich went around the world. Historical newspapers and magazines bear witness to this event. In the reading café – in the museum’s winter garden – visitors are invited to look through international press products over coffee and cake.

Commented film screening in the cinema – The signing of the capitulation in historical film footage
3.30 pm and 5 pm

Correspondents from various countries reported on the signing of the capitulation on 8 May in Berlin-Karlshorst. The journalistic documentation of the day using photos and film footage is rich in detail. It begins, for example, with the arrival of the delegations of the victorious powers at Tempelhof Airport or accompanies their journey to Karlshorst through the destroyed city of Berlin. For the first time, the museum is presenting a cinematic overview of the events of 8 May 1945.

Guided tours to the historic site of the surrender on 8 May 1945

German guided tours: 2 pm, 3 pm, 4 pm, 5 pm, 6 pm
English guided tours: 3.30 pm, 5.30 pm
Russian guided tour: 2.30 pm
Ukrainian guided tour: 4.30 pm

It is not necessary to book in advance to take part in a guided tour.

Survey: Your thoughts on remembrance on 8 May
10am-6pm

Take part in a survey on remembrance on 8 May and talk to us. You are invited to tell us what the end of World War II means to you.

Evening lecture and discussion: No end to the war in Ukraine? Experiences from wars of the past (by Prof Dr Andreas Heinemann-Grüder / University of Bonn)
7 pm

Ukraine finds itself in a precarious situation in the third year after the start of the Russian war of aggression. If international support crumbles, Ukraine could suffer further heavy losses. What would the consequences be? Political science uses conflict research to look at the question of what influences the end of wars and whether the history of past war endings can offer possible answers to the current challenges of the war in Ukraine.

To attend the evening lecture, please register at kontakt@museum-karlshorst.de. The number of places is limited.

Book sale: Some of the museum’s publications will be available free of charge or at reduced prices on 8 May.

Opening hours and guided tour programme on 9 May 2024:
10 am-6 pm

German guided tour: 3 pm
Russian guided tour: 3.30 pm

MAY 

8-9

12:00
treptower park

Reclaiming Remembrance: From 1945 to 2023

78 years after the end of the Second World War, war is raging again in the middle of Europe. This time it is one of the countries that liberated the world from the brown plague in 1945 in the role of aggressor. How could it be that three quarters of a century after the victory over fascism, Russia, the victorious country, shows all the signs of a revived fascist dictatorship?

To answer this question it is necessary to turn to history and its unlearned lessons. To clear the memory of propaganda distortions, to recall the crimes of the Soviet dictatorship, long hushed up, not to forget the ongoing crimes of the Russian regime. But our main task for today is to bring the new victory-defeat closer. Aggression must be defeated.

We are going to set up a small tent camp with exhibition material, a platform for performances and various interactive programmes for two full days on 8 and 9 May in Treptow Park.

Our aims:

  • (re)reflecting on the historical significance of this date and this place in the context of current events,
  • Informing visitors to the monument about the crimes of the Soviet and Russian regimes and their connection to the ongoing war in Ukraine,
  • An appeal to the German government to recognise Germany’s historical responsibility towards Ukraine and to support it even more comprehensively in its liberation struggle against Russian aggression.

More info at: https://fb.me/e/4a3WaY4BL

MAY 

7

14:00
Berlin Nordbahnhof

Remembering means fighting – stop imperialism!

We will take our anger, sadness and solidarity together to the streets of Berlin on 7 May. Let us show our solidarity with Ukraine and its supporters. Let us loudly and angrily take our demands clearly to the streets on this day.

  1. put Putin and his war criminals on trial!
  2. stop imperialism in Ukraine and the world!
  3. freedom for the political prisoners and defenders of Mariupol or Azov Steel and all other prisoners by Russia!
    There will be a march through the Mitte district with 4 rallies.
    Let’s commemorate together our heroes and the victims of imperialism!

More info at: https://fb.me/e/4uY0xIH7v

MAY 

8

10:00-22:00
Berlin-Karlshorst

78th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe

On the night of 8-9 May 1945, the Second World War ended in Europe when, in the building of the Berlin-Karlshorst Museum, the supreme commanders of the Wehrmacht surrendered unconditionally to all four Allied victorious powers: the USA, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France.

This year, the museum marks the 78th anniversary of the unconditional surrender. Once again, the focus is on the historical events and the liberation from National Socialism as well as the individual commemoration of the victims of German crimes.

As last year, there will be no museum festival. In view of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, 8 May 2023 will be dominated by a quiet pause and educational work. Visitors will have the opportunity to learn more about the surrender and the work of the museum through an extensive guided tour programme.

More at: https://www.museum-karlshorst.de/museum/veranstaltungen

“In the Enemy’s Language”? Russophone Poetry in Times of War

Discussion with Miriam Finkelstein (University of Vienna), Dinara Rasuleva (writer), Anuar Duisenbinov (poet) and Nina Frieß (ZOiS).

The event will be held in German and Russian

Ever since the illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia, we have observed how Russophone poets in Ukraine have turned away from the Russian language and begun to write in other languages. With the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, this trend has been reinforced. Even outside Ukraine, people are now wondering how to deal with Russian, which has become the language of the aggressor. Poets, whose main tool is language, have developed different strategies to deal with this challenge. Together with Slavist Miriam Finkelstein and the poets Dinara Rasuleva and Anuar Duisenbinov, ZOiS researcher Nina Frieß will discuss how poets are approaching the issue of language in times of war.

➡️ https://www.zois-berlin.de/veranstaltungen/in-der-sprache-des-feindes-russophone-dichtung-in-zeiten-des-krieges

Hans-Dietrich-Genscher-Haus, Saal 1 - Reinhardtstr. 14, 10117 Berlin

German commemorative culture and its blind spot Ukraine

German society is often seen as a positive example with its historical reappraisal of National Socialism. However, it has concentrated almost exclusively on Russia in its commemoration of the victims of the Second World War in Eastern Europe. The fact that among the victims of the Soviet population more than one million Jews were deported to Ukrainian territory and several million forced labourers were deported from Ukraine to Germany rarely receives attention in German commemorative culture. A large part of the soldiers of the Red Army also came from Ukraine.

Other blind spots include the execution of over 30,000 Jews in the Babyn Yar ravine in Kyiv or the forgotten massacre at Koryukivka. There is also a lack of awareness of key cuts in Ukrainian history – including the colonisation of Ukraine by the Russian Empire, the violent suppression of national consciousness in the Soviet era and the artificially initiated famine, the Holodomor, under Stalin. The latter was only recently recognised as genocide by the Bundestag.

How can Ukrainian history take a more significant part in German commemorative culture? What role does historical scholarship play in this and what political steps must be taken to achieve this? We want to discuss these and many other questions with you and our experts from academia and politics.

➡️ https://shop.freiheit.org/#!/Veranstaltung/LJHFM

MAY 

8-9

ab 15 Uhr
Treptower Park

Guided tours of the memorial

The history of the memorial in Treptower Park

We invite you to a tour of the memorial to the Soviet soldiers buried in Treptower Park. Amidst the pompous, late Stalinist memorial, we will talk about the Soviet architecture of memorials to the fallen of World War II, the characteristics of totalitarian remembrance culture, the replacement of mourning for the dead with a celebration of triumph, and the Soviet use of this triumph to legitimise the enslavement of a large part of Europe.

We will talk about the different perceptions of the Treptow Monument today, but also about how the memory of the WWII has changed in Russia and how it is instrumentalised by Russian state propaganda in order to justify the start of a new war of aggression.

Guided tours of the memorial will take place on 8 May at 4 p.m. in Russian and at 7 p.m. in German, and on 9 May at 3 p.m. in Russian, at 4 p.m. in German and at 7 p.m. in both German and Russian. The meeting point for the guided tours is the pavilion of the initiative “Remembrance аgainst War”. The number of participants is limited to 15 per tour. If necessary, we can offer additional tours at short notice.

Remembering the war: sorrow and glory

The new anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe is celebrated more quietly in Russia than previous ones. St George’s ribbons are less often seen on the clothes, bags and cars of city dwellers. There are fewer stickers like “Thanks to Grandpa for the Victory”, “We can do it again”, “To Berlin”. Before that, in the 2000s and especially in the 2010s, glory and glorification in memories of the war supplanted grief and mourning. Monopolised by state policy, 9 May became a founding myth, constructing a new identity.
Performative practices have developed around the holiday: children and adults dressing up in military uniforms, etc. By declaring itself heir and steward of the victory, Russian power made the memory of the war the basis of identification with today’s Russia, constructing from it the ideology of victory. Appealing to the results of the war has become a prologue to the new one. The authorities are trying to impose the perception of current events through the prism of those of the past: “fascists”, the “POW parade”, the return of Soviet monuments, the new battle for Ukraine.
Such immersion in the past has made it possible to justify Stalin, to update the discourse about external enemies (“fascism standing at Russia’s borders”) and internal traitors, and to legitimise the role of the special services. Can the memory of the war cease to be a divisive factor? Is it possible to remember the war outside the framework of state ideology, or have the authorities taken the non-ideologised memory of the war away from us?

➡️ https://fb.me/e/117gw4lz7

MAY 

8-9

14:00-22:00
Tiergarten

Revision of Culture of Remembrance

Camp at the memorial for the fallen Soviet soldiers in Berlin-Tiergarten. In the context of the war that the Putin regime is waging against Ukraine, we revisit the historical significance of this place and date. The programme: information stands, a stage for speeches, music and art, and various interactive workshops.

Facebook event

MAY 

8

14:00-19:00
Tiergarten

Exhibition: Wake Up!

The Ukrainians are people with dreams, feelings and hopes: hopes for victory and an end to the war. Will Europe respond to their call and support this struggle of Ukrainians for peace?

Facebook

MAY 

8

13:00-13:30
TIERGARTEN

Musical Reading of Memories of People from Bucha

We all saw the photos from Bucha, but we don’t know that well how the people in Bucha felt before and after the massacre. We will give them a voice and will read five text in German translation from people who witnessed the Bucha massacre. The texts are emotional and the emotions will be underlined by accompanying classical music (Bach). 

MAY 

8

15:00-15:30
TIERGARTEN

Reading of Vasily Grossman and Varlaam Shalamov

We will read parts of stories by Vasily Grossman and Varlaam Shalamov about the Nazi cruelties during the Second World War in occupied Poland and also about the every day life in Stalin’s GULAGs. The reading will be in different languages.

MAY 

8

15:00-15:30
TIERGARTEN

Reading of Testimonies of Holocaust Survivors

We will read testimonies of people who witnessed and survived the Holocaust in Ukraine. At the beginning,  we will give a short input into the topic. The reading will be in German.

GEDENKBUND

MAY 

8

13:45-16:30
GEDENKBUND
BRANDENBURG GATE

Then as now: United against war! Defend Ukraine and Europe!

May 8th is a historic date in Europe. Today there is war in Europe again!
Let’s take to the streets together on May 8th and send a clear signal against these imperial aggressions. Let us fight in solidarity for Ukraine and other oppressed peoples!

The meeting point of the march is at 18 March Square

Facebook event

Victory and Defeat

Lecture by Anke Giesen in German and Russian:
The culture of remembrance and history politics and thus also the foreign and domestic politics of nations is characterized by victories and defeats, and thus also by feelings of pride, disgrace and shame. Germany and Russia have a special relationship in this respect. 

Confronting Memories

World War II is remebered very differently in different countries. In some parts of what is now the European Union, the picture is of one aggressor – Nazi Germany – and coalition of allies fighting against it. In Central and Eastern Europe, the picture is more complex. For many, liberation by the Red Army meant the start of another form of totalitarian subjugation. The result is very different memories of the war in different countries, and large differences in the way the story of the war is taught. 

We will show a part of the exhibition “Different Wars” that depicts WWII in national school textbooks in Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, Lithuania, Poland and Russia. In addition, we will present lesson materials prepared by teachers from Belarus, Germany, Poland, and Ukraine using multiperspectivity approach and tackling history teaching of WWII history. In a new contenxt of war, this work should be discussed further and new approaches should be found.

INITIATIVE SUBCAMP LICHTERFELDE E.V.

MAY 

8

12:30-14:00
INITIATIVE SUBCAMP LICHTERFELDE E.V.
BERLIN-LICHTERFELDE

Commemoration Ceremony for Subcamp Lichterfelde

Commemoration ceremony and tribute to the former prisoners of the Berlin-Lichterfelde satellite concentration camp. Belarusian Community Razam e.V. is invited.

DOCUMENTATION OFFICE POWDER FACTORY LIEBENAU E.V.

MAY 

8

13:00
DOCUMENTATION OFFICE POWDER FACTORY LIEBENAU E.V.
DEBLINGHAUSEN

War Cemetery Deblinghausen-Hesterberg

From 1939 to 1945, the Nazi arms manufacturers Wolff & Co and its subsidiary Eibia GmbH used about 20,000 foreign and forced labourers from various European nations in the Liebenau powder factory (near Hanover). More than 2,000 of them – mostly Soviet prisoners of war and Eastern European prisoners of the “Liebenau labour education camp” – died of deficiency diseases, hunger and beatings as well as from shootings and executions. They were buried in a factory-owned cemetery, today’s Deblinghausen-Hesterberg war cemetery.

The commemoration ceremony for the liberation and end of the war in 1945 (here April 1945) is deliberately taking place again this year on 8 May – with the descendants of former forced labourers from the powder factory in Ukraine and other Ukrainians who were taken in as refugees in Liebenau and the surrounding area via partner organisations of the Documentation Centre.

FEDERAL ASSOCIATION OF RUSSIAN-SPEAKING PARENTS E.V.

MAY 

9

17:00-19:00
FEDERAL ASSOCIATION OF RUSSIAN-SPEAKING PARENTS E.V.
ONLINE

Online workshop “Remembering together on site. remembering in diversity”

Common remembrance in the migration society thrives on the diversity of memories. Sometimes this diversity can also become a challenge, e.g. when others interpret the story completely differently than I do. How can we organize remembrance on site in such a way that everyone can connect? In the workshop we will deal with possible ways and methods for a common remembrance on site. In addition, there are impulses on the topic of multi-perspectivity in the teaching of history as well as on questions of tolerating differences when remembering and on helpful communication options.

Speaker: Ruth Wunnicke, Against Forgetting – For Democracy e.V.

Facebook event

INITIATIVE QUORUM

MAY 

10

19.00-20.30
INITIATIVE QUORUM
PANDA PLATFORMA – LIVE AND IN THE LIVE STREAM

End of WW2: Not just liberation

World War II ended many decades ago, but it is still a part of our present. In Russia it is misused in propaganda to justify the attack on Ukraine, the USSR’s victory over Nazi Germany is reinterpreted as the basis of modern Russian statehood and is intended to legitimize Putin’s regime and his claims on the world. At the same time, the tactics and crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine evoke memories of the actions of the Soviet army in World War II: Immense casualties on their own side, violence against the population of the conquered areas, political reprisals and looting. For the countries occupied by the USSR, the end of the war meant the beginning of a new oppression. The Soviet monuments were important symbols and even instruments of Soviet rule. Today they will, especially on 8./9. May, used by pro-Russian forces to demonstrate support for Russia’s regime and its wars. How do you deal with this legacy? What could a new culture of remembrance look like? What lessons need to be re-learned? We talk about this with the German-Ukrainian writer Katja Petrowskaja and the historian Jan Claas Behrends.

Moderator: Nikolai Klimeniouk, Initiative Quorum

Facebook event

ALLIANCE OF UKRAINIAN ORGANIZATIONS

MAY 

8

12:00-18:00
ALLIANCE OF UKRAINIAN ORGANIZATIONS
MARKTHALLE 9

Lighthouse Ukraine – a day for humanity, cohesion and freedom

DEKABRISTEN E.V.

MAY 

9

9:00-18:00
DEKABRISTEN E.V.
FROM 9.00 - SOWJETISCHES EHRENMAL, TREPTOWER PARK,
FROM 16.00 - TIERGARTEN

Let’s talk about war

A group of prepared volunteers will be there at places of commeration to talk to people about the war in Ukraine and current war, depunking the myths created by Russian propaganda, as well as the problematic positions of the German left.