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Department of Archaeology

 

Safeguarding Sites: the IHRA Charter for Best Practice

From 2019-2023, Gilly Carr is chairing a five-year project of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in her capacity as a member of the UK delegation of IHRA. In the knowledge that sites across Europe associated with the Holocaust and genocide of the Roma are facing multiple challenges in the 21st century, this project seeks to write heritage guidelines for best practice to safeguard such sites. Challenges have included arson, looting, the rise in far right politics, neglect and decay, and inappropriate alternative reuse. Through visiting selected sites over the next five years, the international team will refine their guidelines. The first year of the project kicked off with an expert meeting in Mondorf-les-Bains, Luxembourg, followed by a team visit to the Channel Island of Alderney. Two concentration camps and at least three slave labour camps were built in Alderney during the German occupation of 1940-1945. Geophysical surveys indicate that the island also has a small mass grave. These sites are all unmarked today.

The pause in fieldwork caused by the pandemic in 2020 meant that the team instead focused on digital innovation and creativity in Holocaust commemoration that year. In 2021, Gilly will lead the team on a visit to Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps in Austria, with additional visits to sites in Hungary if the situation allows.

Virtual meetings with Alderney will continue in 2021; additional funding secured from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will be employed to help the island work through a solution to the challenges faced by its sites.

Funder

International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance

Project Lead

Project Tags

Themes: 
Heritage
Periods of interest: 
Other Historical
Geographical areas: 
Europe
Research Expertise / Fields of study: 
Socio-Politics of the Past
Heritage Management
Cultural Heritage
Subjects: 
Heritage Studies
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