The City as a Place of Historical Memory

 

  The workshop entitled ‘Mapping the City: Places of Suffering in Novi Sad’, held in the Youth Forum, is the continuation of the programme ‘Freezing Silence Speaks’ by the Cultural Centre of Novi Sad, organised to commemorate the victims of Novi Sad Raid of 1942. Interactive workshop was held by the author Gordana Todorić, who is a teacher in the High School of Economics, and the story was complemented with the historical facts by historian Stefan Radojković.

  To the audience, which was mostly comprised of young people, the author in an interesting way showed certain segments, pointing out to layers in historical memory of the city. With plethora of information, she conjured former look of streets in Novi Sad, explained which places were important during the Raid, and how they were used.

  Visitors found out how the building of ‘Youth Theatre’ was called and what happened in it during the Raid, but also the stories about other buildings which played an important role in this unfortunate event. Places of suffering were also presented, and apart from photographs, everything was supported by historical data.

  The author and teacher Gordana Todorić said that this introductory workshop deals with the city as a place of historical memory, pointing out that young people should know, when they pass by a building, why it is important and what story it can tell.

– This is actually a cultural archaeology of a modern discipline called the culture of remembering. Young people to whom I teach have enough information about this topic taking into consideration their age, and it is encouraging that they are willing and that they want to know more, while older citizens remember this event on the level of personal trauma, said Ms Todorić and added that all victims have not been identified yet and that these data are hard to derive because many families completely disappeared from the map of the city.