All wars leave survivors, and all survivors deal with a wartime experience in very different ways - individually and privately, but also institutionally, collectively, nationally. While many may prefer to forget what is often a traumatic period of their lives, others seem compelled to remember battles won and lost, sacrifices made and suffering endured.

In that regard, memories of the Second World War in Germany and Ukraine since 1945 allow for case studies that are both challenging and fascinating. Ukraine was occupied by the Wehrmacht within half a year of Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 and endured economic exploitation and mass murder, especially of its Jewish population, on an unprecedented scale. Still, Ukraine came out on the winning side, as a part of the victorious Soviet Union. The “Day of Victory”, however, is a bit of a cumbersome holiday since Ukraine has split from the Soviet Union and finds herself in an open conflict with Russia today. On top of that, the various, very situational reactions of Ukraine’s population and of the Ukrainian nationalist underground to the German occupation and, later, to the advancing Soviet Army, allow not for one, but many competing memories of the Second World War. They continue to be a matter of passionate historical debates and have an enormous public relevance in Ukraine today, especially since the Euromaidan and the Russian aggression.

Germany’s memories of the Second World War are equally complex, even though it is difficult to think of a more different set of circumstances. Here, learning to reinterpret “defeat” as “liberation” took considerable time, and it took even longer to learn about - and accept - the full scale of German crimes committed during World War II. While these crimes are not really in dispute as facts, symptoms of a desire for focusing on “German victims” of the war have recently appeared - or resurfaced - in various segments of the public sphere, from TV shows to political parties.

The fifth annual conference of the German-Ukrainian Historical Commission picks up where last year’s conference on Germany and Ukraine in the Second World War left off and intends to explore how the Second World War used to be remembered in both countries since 1945, and how it is remembered today. If German and Ukrainian memories have any common ground regarding Ukraine specifically remains to be seen.

While we chiefly aim to initiate a German-Ukrainian dialogue about these issues, academic contributions from other countries are also very welcome. You are invited to send in papers dealing with the following issues - with Ukraine and Germany as main points of reference:
- Private and public ways of remembering the Second World War,
- Fragmented and competing memories of the Second World War,
- Memories of wartime and occupation realities: battles, forced labor, mass murder, resistance, collaboration
- Memories transformed: the impact of political change and transition,
- Memories lost: the disappearance of eye-witnesses and its effect on remembering the Second World War.

Please submit your proposals (500-800 words) and a short CV (one page maximum) to Dr. Pascal Trees (duhk@lrz.uni-muenchen.de) by May 9, 2019.
Accommodation will be provided and travel expenses refunded for conference speakers. Conference languages will be English and Ukrainian. As we aim to publish the conference’s results, please be prepared to hand in your paper in a form that is fit for publication.
The German-Ukrainian Historical Commission is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
For organizational questions please contact: duhk@lrz.uni-muenchen.de / +49 89 2180-3056 / www.duhk.org