The Present of Our Past was a study trip we organised in the autumn of 2022 and it included visits to marked and unmarked sites of suffering in the wider Jasenovac and Novska area in Croatia, as well as Donja Gradina, Kozara, Prijedor and Sanski Most in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This wider area at the foot of Mount Kozara was marked by mass suffering of the population in the Second World War, but also in the more recent 1991-1995 war. The study trip was envisaged as an opportunity to gain insight into memorial practices and memory policies in the region, how they were established and how they are being maintained or adapted.
We have previously published a report, and now we are making available extensive documentation about the study trip (available in PDF format in BCSM language). The documentation is divided into two parts. Part One contains information about and impressions from these sites; and Part Two details the workshops, exercises and conversations we had about the context, Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav culture of memory, their similarities and differences, as well as our dilemmas and thoughts.
The participants of the study trip were students and young researchers working in the fields of history, psychology, and art history, as well as human rights and peace activists and reporters from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia.
The documentation is only available in BCSM language and can be downloaded HERE