On October 8, 2025, the CPPD Festival “Memory Matters” will take place in cooperation with OFFENER PROZESS – A Documentation Center on the NSU Complex in Chemnitz, focusing on “Memory in Digital Spaces.”
Digitalisation opens up new possibilities for the culture of remembrance. Interviews with contemporary witnesses can serve as the basis for training large language models that can answer questions even after the survivors have passed away. Holograms enable seemingly authentic encounters with contemporary witnesses beyond their lifetime. Digital archives make historical documents accessible worldwide.
But technological innovations harbour considerable risks. When algorithms are trained on the basis of historical evidence, questions arise about authenticity and manipulation: Who controls what digital ‘contemporary witnesses’ say? How can distortions or even deliberate falsifications of history be prevented?
The tension between digital and physical memory is particularly problematic. Numerous events in Europe’s violent history still do not have appropriate memorial sites. At the same time, digitisation threatens to serve as a convenient excuse: why erect monuments or finance memorial sites when memory can also be staged virtually?
Previous experiences with digital memory spaces in virtual worlds such as Second Life or the Metaverse give cause for scepticism: without continuous maintenance and investment, they quickly degenerate into digital wastelands. Added to this is dependence on private-sector actors whose interests do not necessarily coincide with those of a responsible culture of remembrance. Recent developments at Meta and X show how quickly corporate strategies can change – sometimes at the expense of remembrance culture projects. Remembrance, however, requires consistency and reliability, qualities that private platforms cannot guarantee.
The central question is therefore: How can digital methods enrich the culture of remembrance without displacing or endangering it? And how can the integrity of historical evidence be preserved in an age of algorithmic reproducibility and corporate control?
Program
NETWORKING MEETING
10.00 am – 1.00 pm | Vermittlungsraum, OFFENER PROZESS – A Documentation Center on the NSU Complex
After the first stops in Halle and Rostock, we would like to use the networking meeting on October 8 in Chemnitz to create further spaces for concrete exchange and the continuation of our joint work. The focus will be on the challenges of remembrance work in digital spaces – and the development of proposals on how it can nevertheless succeed. The aim of the format is to network local, regional, and nationwide institutions, organizations, and actors from the field of remembrance politics and culture and to create synergies between topics, resources, and projects.
(Interne event)
>> Registration here
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WORKSHOP 1: Guided tour of the exhibition “Offener Prozess“
2.00 pm – 3.00 pm | OFFENER PROZESS – A Documentation Center on the NSU Complex
The tour will present the central theme of the exhibition. Participants will learn how the exhibition is structured and gain an overview of what is covered where in the exhibition. After a 45-minute tour of the exhibition, there will be a 15-minute discussion. This will provide an opportunity for questions and discussion.
(Public Event)
>> Registration here
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WORKSHOP 2: Introduction to the digital memorial site “re:member the future”
2.00 pm – 3.00 pm | OFFENER PROZESS – A Documentation Center on the NSU Complex | Meeting Point: Main entrance
re:member the future is an interactive intervention in the public space of the city of Chemnitz, because there is currently no official memorial site in the city for those murdered by the NSU. It serves to commemorate those murdered, injured, and survivors of NSU terror. It is a necessary work against the forgetting that is already occurring, reminding us not only of the lives that were extinguished, but also of the resistance and demands of the survivors in the face of a racist society.
(Public Event)
>> Registration here
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PANEL DISCUSSION
Entrance from 6.00 pm | Start 6.30 pm
Entrance, OFFENER PROZESS – A Documentation Center on the NSU Complex
Digitalisation opens up new possibilities for engaging with remembrance culture – from AI-supported eyewitness interviews to holographic encounters and globally accessible digital archives. At the same time, it raises new challenges. As this year’s European Capital of Culture, Chemnitz, is a city of contrasts – characterised by lively diversity and, at the same time, by the challenges of a violent past. The Offener Prozess – a documentation center on the NSU complex – embodies this engagement with local history and offers a special framework to discuss the future of remembrance culture while exploring digital methods without endangering the integrity or significance of physical places of remembrance.
Together with experts Dr Jonas Fegert, Nhi Le and Susanne Siegert, moderator Benjamin Fischer discusses how digital methods can transform the culture of remembrance. The discussion will address both opportunities – such as new approaches to historical experiences or innovative educational formats – and risks, such as questions of authenticity, manipulation or the use of private platforms.
The event ‘Practices of Remembrance in Digital Spaces’ is part of the 3rd CPPD Festival »Memory Matters« and is being realised with the Future 500 programme and in cooperation with Offener Prozess – a documentation center on the NSU complex.
(Public Event, Registration via OFFENER PROZESS )
>> Registration here
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EXHIBITION: Dynamic Memory Lab – Erinnerungsbooth „Nước Đức. Vietnamesisch-Deutsche Migrationsgeschichte(n)“
From 6.00 pm | OFFENER PROZESS – A Documentation Center on the NSU Complex
The Dynamic Memory Lab ‘Nước Đức’ examines the history of Vietnamese-German migration and explores the question of how history is remembered and recounted – or suppressed and concealed. The exhibition focuses on the memories and experiences of the Vietnamese-German community, which have moved and intersected over several decades between flight and contract work, between North and South Vietnam and East and West Germany, between a history of violence and self-empowerment. We are showing a condensed version of the original exhibition, which opened in Rostock on 20 September.
Curated by Dan Thy Nguyen and Nina Reiprich, with contributions by Phuong Dan, KI Bui, Minh Duc Pham, Nhi Le and others.
