Auschwitz and afterwards

How do we relate with the most traumatic event in the modern European history? How can we ensure that the commemorations are not trivialised and that holding a memorial is an impetus for action in the present? On the 75^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, we offer an evening of thinking about these questions through images and words. A filmmaker and a writer who have focused their work on the Holocaust will talk about what we can do with this legacy today, and how the fact of recording the most difficult moments of our past could be a way of looking critically at our own times.

The evening will begin with the screening of a fragment of the documentary Et la terre s’ouvrit une dernière fois, directed by Arnaud Sauli, about the Sobibor extermination camp. This will be followed by a discussion between the novelist Yishai Sarid, author of The Memory Monster, and the writer Marta Marín-Dòmine, author of Fugir era el més bell que teníem (Fleeing Was the Most Beautiful Thing We Had). The evening will conclude with a reading by the actress Laura Aubert of texts by the writer and Holocaust survivor, Charlotte Delbo.

The event is part of the programming for The Night of Ideas, a project of the French Cultural Network, which fosters free circulation of ideas and knowledge through the simultaneous holding of cultural acts around the world. In Barcelona the initiative is supported by the French Institute.