Live broadcast on the Facebook page of the Kragujevac October Memorial Park.

The event Holocaust: The legacy of fascism is organized on the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27th) by the Memorial Park “Kragujevac October” in partnership with ShoahLab: Holocaust Studies Laboratory of the Institute of Philosophy and Social Theory, Federation of Jewish Communities of Serbia, Center for Public History, Faculty of Philology and Arts, University of Kragujevac, Association “Jewish Digital Library” and Center for Peacebuilding, Kragujevac. The event frames commemoration through nurturing thinking, knowledge and education about the Holocaust and its consequences on the territory of the Republic of Serbia and beyond.

Since 2019, when it was first held, Holocaust: The Legacy of Fascism programs included testimonies of Holocaust survivors, lectures, workshops, exhibitions, book and expert talks on topics such as: Holocaust visual culture and art in Serbia, the life of the Jewish community in Serbia before and after the Holocaust, education about the Holocaust, philosophy and the Holocaust, as well as contemporary issues of Holocaust representation.

The intention of this year’s gathering titled “Sounds of Evil” is to present the main streams of tonal testimonies and treatments of the Holocaust, and then to thematise the sensitive relationship between a historical event of incomparable significance and dimensions and the music art form.

Music was a close companion of the Holocaust – in all senses of the word “companion”. The Nazis used it to muffle the screams of their victims. Some melodies were composed and performed by victims in ghettos and camps. And the music production dedicated to the Holocaust, in almost all its genres, has filled (and continues to fill) a large sound library to this day.

Participants in the program are: Nada Banjanin Đuričić (CPH, Railway Technical School Belgrade), Anja Lazarević Kocić (FILUM University of Kragujevac), Ivan Lončarević (Pop depresija), Tamara Plećaš (IFDT University of Belgrade), Marija Dinov, Vera Mevorah (ShoahLab IFDT) i Maja Vasiljević (Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade).

The authors of the program are Marko Terzić, curator of the Museum “October 21” and Predrag Krstić researcher from the Institute of Philosophy and Social Theory.

The “Kragujevac October” Memorial Park was founded in 1953 on the site where thousands of Kragujevac citizens – Serbs, Jews, Roma, Muslims, Macedonians, Slovenes and members of other nationalities, aged twelve to sixty-five – were shot dead in October 1941. The Museum “October 21” was founded within the Memorial Park on February 15, 1976, with the aim of collecting, safeguarding and presenting documents on shootings and victims, through exhibitions, events and printed publications. The mission of the Memorial Park “Kragujevac October” is to nurture and preserve the memory of this tragic event, to create awareness and educate young generations so that this crime will never happen again.

ShoahLab: The Holocaust Studies Laboratory was founded at the end of 2019 at the Institute of Philosophy and Social Theory University of Belgrade as a hub of disciplinary and methodologically different approaches to Holocaust research. The laboratory brings together historians, philosophers, sociologists, theorists of visual arts, literature and contemporary media – in a joint effort to shed light on, understand and explain an incomprehensible crime, as well as its significance and repercussions for contemporaneity.