Conference: Subaltern Memories 2025

BACKGROUND

The conference “The Denied. Persecuted as ‘Asocials’ and ‘Professional Criminals’ under National Socialism and Fascism in Europe” is organized by the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne, and the University of Barcelona / EUROM – European Observatory of Memories – with the support of Catalonia International, a public-private partnership that connects highly qualified individuals and institutions such as universities from Catalonia with partners worldwide.

The conference is part of the “Subaltern Memories” event series, organized annually by EUROM since 2022, to address the memories of specific social groups that have been silenced or marginalized – communities that have suffered severe oppression in the past. With this aim, it directly connects to the exhibition “The Denied. Victims of National Socialism 1933–1945 – Today”, which will be on display at the NS Documentation Center from October 8, 2025, to January 4, 2026.

Between 1933 and 1945, authorities and police adopted social prejudices. They controlled, harassed, and deprived tens of thousands of people of their freedom. Many were murdered. The ideological reference point was the concept of the “German Volksgemeinschaft”. Its establishment was to be achieved through the violent enforcement of an ‘order of inequality’.

To what extent did these principles of order play a role in the subjugation of large parts of Europe and its millions of non-German populations from 1938/39 onwards? In occupied Europe, robbery, forced labor, and racist, anti-Roma, and antisemitic mass murders were central to Nazi policy. Nevertheless: In addition to this main policy of extermination, the German occupiers also enforced exclusionary concepts of order against traditionally marginalized groups. However, as in Germany, they primarily relied on eugenic assumptions (“social racism”).

Research on this topic is still in its infancy and poorly coordinated. An assessment in the context of the overall history of German rule in Europe is missing. Central questions of the conference are therefore: In what context is the persecution of “Asocials” and “Professional Criminals” in Germany and the occupied territories? Is it a worthwhile research approach, and is it legitimate at all with regard to remembrance policy to focus on practices of exclusion of marginalized groups in the German-occupied territories – or, conversely, is there a risk of dilution, the risk that by including such intersectional perspectives and by focusing on these exclusionary aspects of persecution, the overall dimensions and main intentions of the German occupation regime will be lost sight of?

The conference focuses, on the one hand, on the legal frameworks and the respective institutions of persecution in individual occupied territories and allied fascist states such as Spain under the Franco dictatorship. On the other hand, a special focus is placed on the individual experiences of the persecuted and aspects of remembrance culture. Where did the persecuted speak? Can the assumption that they left no sources of their own be refuted? In post-war Europe, marginalizing stereotypes persisted, victims were denied compensation, and their experiences of injustice are denied. The continuities of exclusion persist to this day. The conference therefore also addresses current legal concepts and police practices.