On Monday, the 1st of August we finally started our International Summer School on difficult heritage. It was still an arrival day so the whole team gathered just till the evening.
On the very first day we had two main activities. The first was a Guided Tour to the Memorial Complex of Tuskulenai Peace Park where participants received a snack peak of what we will discuss during the whole event, i.e. problems of unveiling, presentation and public consumption of previously hidden, rejected or somehow forgotten, uncomfortable past and its remains.
The Memorial Complex of Tuskulenai Peace Park established in 2002. The gorgeous architectural ensemble of classicism on the bank of the Neris until 19th century was famous for being one of the cultural hotspots of Vilnius, while during the Soviet occupation the area of the nationalized manor became a place where crimes of repressive structures were hidden.
During the period of 1944-1947, fighters of anti-Soviet armed resistance, their commanders and clergy killed in the NKGB-MGB prison and Vilnius districts as well as participants in the June Uprising, fighters of the Armia Krajowa (Poland) and other people who were in bad with the Soviet totalitarian regime secretly were buried here.
After the restoration of Lithuania’s independence, 724 human remains were found in the area of the Tuskulėnai Manor; now, they rest in the chapel-columbarium of the memorial complex.
After a tour participants had a possibility to walk through the city center, ended in an inner yard of Institute of Journalism of Vilnius University where we had a barbecue party with a Lithuanian cold soup saltibarsciai as a main dish.
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