Post Bellum

Post Bellum is a Czech non-profit organization founded in 2001 by a group of historians and journalists interested in increasing the knowledge of people regarding events that occurred in the 20th Century within the Czech Republic and surrounding European countries. Post Bellum has collected thousands of witness accounts by conducting interviews with people who lived through significant periods in history. Their documentation project, Stories of the 20th Century, is the biggest oral history project in the Czech Republic. Post Bellum’s main goal is to inform the public, especially younger generations, of the historical events of the last century. They do this by organizing many different projects and activities used to raise awareness of modern history. Post Bellum is also an associated member organisation of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience.

Team of Post Bellum in 2013.

Stories of the 20th Century

By interviewing people who have lived through significant periods in history, Post Bellum has collected thousands of witness accounts. With Mikuláš Kroupa and Adam Drda as authors, Stories of the 20th Century thrives as a project that documents historical turning points in the 1900s through witness’s personal anecdotes and memories. Since its origin, Stories of the 20th Century has become the largest collection of oral historical interviews, with more than interviews, all archived by text and/or electronically. The people interviewed include war veterans, Holocaust survivors, political prisoners of Nazi and Communist times, and minorities. This project is regularly broadcast through Czech Radio, and is one of the most popular Czech radio documentaries with a different story broadcast weekly.

Within the Community

Open Air Exposition opening organised in 2009 by Post Bellum in Prague.

Because their main purpose is to inform the public of historical events, Post Bellum has a variety of ways that they reach out to people, including exhibitions, publishing books, and organizing social events.

Memory of Nations

Memory of Nations is a project coordinated by Post Bellum, with its main partners Czech Radio, and the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. The collections of interviews are archived online, and Czech Radio provides with technology and equipment necessary to carry out the interviews and recordings of witnesses. It’s an international project; witnesses are interviewed in their original language, which is then translated into English. People interested can search the Memories of Nations site by different categories, anniversaries, places, etc. in order to find specific anecdotes and interviews of people who lived through these times.[1] Memory of Nation project contains in January 2015 more than 2100 published stories of witnesses in several languages with more than 24 000 pictures.

Memory of Nations Award

Replica of Concentration camp in Mauthausen at Karlovo náměstí in Prague. It was organized in May – July 2012 by Post Bellum in memory of 70th Anniversary of Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich and following repressions by Nazi regime.

The Memory of Nations Award is a distinguished honor given to five recipients annually. They are chosen from a total of twenty nominees by a panel of people associated with historical research, journalist connections, or political power. Post Bellum has hosted the Awards ceremony since 2010. In November 2014, the award was presented to people connected to the resistance of the Iron Curtain, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of communism in Europe.

Phone Application

Those involved with Memory of Nations has created a mobile application entitled “Memory of Nations sites,” in which smartphone users can find places throughout Europe, witness accounts, texts, and archival materials. One can access the interactive map and find hundreds of anecdotes based on their current location of historical interests. The app is available through both iOS and android operating systems.

We Are Still At War

In 2005 Post Bellum published the comic book We Are Still At War, which contains thirteen different stories, each drawn by talented artists from both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

References

  1. ↑ castulik@ora.cz, perich@ora.cz. "Memory of Nations". memoryofnations.eu. Retrieved 2 March 2015.
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