WORKING

DRAFT

The Platform of European Memory and Conscience

and the Hungarian Committee of National Remembrance
cordially invite to an international conference

The Iron Curtain

- The Consequences of WWII -

which will take place on

5-6 May 2015

in Budapest, Hungary, House of Parliament - Delegation Hall

Purpose of the Conference:

The aim of the international conference which will be held on the 70th anniversary
of the end of WWII in Europe is to draw attention to the fact that the the defeat of
National Socialist Germany meant the seamless transition into totalitarian
Communist dictatorship for the citizens of Central and Eastern Europe. The Iron
Curtain, the fortified and impassable border barrier between the free democratic
world and the countries under Communist dictatorship, became the symbol of the
violent division of Europe for another 45 years. It was on the Iron Curtain that
thousands of innocent Europeans met their death while trying to escape into
freedom, it was behind the Iron Curtain that the atrocities and grave crimes of
Communism were successfully concealed.

This conference wants to fill in some of the remaining white areas on the map of
Europes history and to analyse how the post-WWII division of Europe was planned
and prepared, to create an overview of the ascent of the Communist dictatorships to
power in the wake of WWII, to present latest research on the statistics of the people
killed on the Iron Curtain as well as to examine the knowledge in the West about the
reality of life behind the Iron Curtain and aspects of Western economic collaboration
with the Communist bloc. The conference will also discuss the issue of justice for the
crimes and possible modes of commemoration of the victims of the Iron Curtain in
Europe today.

The goal of the conference is to improve historical knowledge in Europe and to
foster a better understanding and integration between the West and East of the
formerly divided Europe.

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Draft programme as of 13.4.2015:

Tuesday 5 May 2015

8.00

8.55 9.00

9.00 9.15



9.15-9.25

9.30-11.00

Registration and refreshments

Welcome
Rka Fldvryn Kiss (Chairperson, Committee of National Remembrance)
Inaugural Address
Mr Jnos der, President of Hungary TBC
Opening speech
Mr Lszl Kvr, Speaker of Parliament
Session 1
The planning and execution of the division of Europe
1939 Hitler-Stalin pact, Teheran, Jalta and Potsdam conferences...
Pawe Ukielski (Deputy Director, Institute of National Remembrance, PL)
Valters Nollendorfs (Member of Board, Occupation Museum Association of Latvia)
Mria Schmidt (Director, House of Terror Museum, HU)

11.00 11.30 coffee break

11.30 13.00 Session 2
From one totalitarianism into another - the Communist takeover in Central and
Eastern Europe
Methods employed by the USSR and the Communist parties in Central and Eastern Europe
to install the dictatorship: mass killings and atrocities, terror, election fraud and
manipulation
Petr Blaek (Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, CZ)
Tibor Zinner (Team leader, VERITAS Research Institute; research fellow at the National
Institute of Criminology, HU)

Jzsef . Kovcs (Scientific advisor, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Centre for
the Humanities)

13.00-14.00 lunch

14.00-15.30 Session 3
How the Iron Curtain was built
History of the erection of the barriers in Europe, destruction of settlements, the
technology and devices used to harm and kill people, the regime of border control, the
secondary Iron Curtains within the Eastern bloc
Miroslav Lehk (Jn Lango Foundation, SK)
Lszl Tks (Member of the European Parliament, RO)
Barbara Bank (Member, Committee of National Remembrance, HU)

15.30-16.00 coffee break

16.00-17.30 Session 4
Life behind the Iron Curtain and its fall in 1989
The official propaganda, life in the border regions, the civilian collaborators of the border
guards, how much did the citizens of the Eastern bloc know, stories of escapees across the
Iron Curtain, the fall of the Iron Curtain

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Rka Kiss (Chairperson, Committee of National Remembrance)
Krisztina Slachta (research fellow, Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security
TBC)
Marko Mikhelson (Head, Foreign Affairs Committee, Parliament of Estonia) TBC

17.30-17.45



19.00

Concluding remarks
ron Mth (Member, Committee of National Remembrance, HU)
Dinner

Wednesday 6 May 2015


8.00

8.55-9.00

9.00-10.30

10.30-11.00

11.00-12.30

12.30-13.30

13.30-15.00

15.00-15.30

15.30-17.00

Registration and refreshments

Opening
Gran Lindblad (President, Platform of European Memory and Conscience)
Session 5
How the West accommodated to the Iron Curtain
How much did the Western administrations know? Trade with the Eastern bloc, the
Eastern bloc as a production site (IKEA, etc.), Western broadcasts across the Iron Curtain
Gran Lindblad (President, Platform of European Memory and Conscience, SE)
Johann Grnbauer (Foundation Memory of Totalitarian Regimes and their Victims, NL)
Wolfgang-Christian Fuchs (President, Inter-Asso, DE) TBC
coffee break
Session 6
Victims of the Iron Curtain
State of knowledge about the numbers of victims of the Iron Curtain from individual
countries, from Finland to Turkey
Lukasz Kamiski (President, Institute of National Remembrance, PL)
Vasil Kadrinov (Hannah Arendt Center Sofia, BG)
Attila Horvth (Director, Institute of State and Social Theory, National University of
Public Service, Faculty of Public Administration, HU)
lunch
Session 7
Justice for the crimes committed along and behind the Iron Curtain
The total human toll of Communist totalitarianism in Europe, prosecution of the
perpetrators after 1989, prosecution of Nazi perpetrators today
Neela Winkelmann (Managing Director, Platform of European Memory and Conscience)
Gbor Katona (Head, Legal and International Department, Office of the Committee of
National Remembrance, HU)
Kurt Schrimm (Head, Central Office for the Investigation of the Nazi Crimes, DE) TBC
coffee break / Press conference
Session 8
Commemoration of the division of Europe and lessons learned
Memorials to people killed along what is today called the Green belt, education, a pan-
European memorial to the victims of totalitarianism in Europe
Andreja Vali Zver (Director, Study Centre for National Reconciliation, SI)
Ludk Navara (Civic Association Memory, CZ)
Representative of the European Green belt initiative TBC

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17.00-17.15 Concluding remarks


Jnos Lzr (Minister of the Prime Ministers Office, HU) TBC

17.30
Reception




Accompanying event (4-6 May 2015):
Screening of documentary films on the topic of the Iron Curtain

_______________________________________________________________________________________________
contact:
Dr. Neela Winkelmann, Managing Director, Platform of European Memory and Conscience,
director@memoryandconscience.eu