8.2. Minoroites, Memories, Silnces and Forgotten Things

In May 1944, following the Soviet liberation of Crimea from Nazi occupation, at least 180,000 Crimean Tatars were forcibly deported to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, several thousand kilometers from their homeland. The Soviet government justified this operation as an act of collective punishment, claiming that many Crimean Tatars had collaborated with Nazi Germany. In the aftermath, the authorities launched an intensive campaign of “detatarization,” aimed at erasing the remaining traces of Crimean Tatar presence and culture in the region. Although the deportation was later acknowledged as unlawful after Stalin’s death, the stigmatizing portrayal of Crimean Tatars as “traitors” continued to circulate for decades and was used to block their repatriation. It was not until the late 1980s that approximately 260,000 Crimean Tatars were finally able to return, after forty-five years in exile. This paper analyzes the mechanisms through which the Soviet regime constructed and disseminated the “traitor” narrative, as well as the long-term function of this discourse in legitimizing forced displacement and exclusion. It further examines how activists within the Crimean Tatar national movement challenged these depictions by developing counter-narratives that emphasized loyalty, victimhood, and the right to return. In doing so, the study highlights the contested nature of historical memory and demonstrates how competing narratives shaped both Soviet state policy and Crimean Tatar identity.

This paper examines the possibilities for transnational alliances through memory in post-migrant societies in the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring. Since the 2011- Revolution in Syria, Germany's capital, Berlin, has become a focal point for post-revolutionary diasporas, where the collective memory of dictatorship, resistance, and suppression has been shaped over the past decade. However, the rise of right-wing, anti-migrant sentiment has posed significant challenges to these diasporic communities, making them vulnerable and complicating their political struggle. Drawing on several years of participatory fieldwork, this paper uses the concept of relational memory to explore how experiences of authoritarianism and resistance can connect dissidents across different generations and world regions within post-migrant societies. To do so, it analyses the interaction between Syrian exiles and civil rights activists from the former GDR. The paper highlights how these encounters create a shared horizon of experience, linking transnational histories of political violence, resistance to authoritarianism and the complexities of post-revolutionary times. Through these exchanges, the paper demonstrates how mutual recognition and solidarity can emerge, fostering connectedness, empowerment, and a shared sense of struggle. The paper also explores how individuals process their own experiences of violence and repression by engaging with those of others, shedding light on the complex dynamics of memory, identity, and political engagement in post-migrant society.

This paper considers the award winning documentary, Genocide in the Wildflower State (Yokai, 2023) in the context of almost 30 years of truth telling work by sister organisations Bringing Them Home WA and WA Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation. The documentary uses archival documents and footage alongside first person testimony of Aboriginal people who were forcibly removed from their families as part of Australia’s 20th century assimilation policies. These testimonies were able to be spoken because of ongoing relationships of trust within an expanding community of memory, developed over three decades of memory work. In this paper, I apply a contextual Six Seasons framework, developed by First Nations Elders (in particular Dr Richard Walley), to understand the cyclical nature of truth telling, listening, and community building that has allowed the story of the Stolen Generations to finally be heard in an Australian settler-colonial context where, despite an official apology in 2007, Stolen Generations survivors continue to be silenced and denied justice. Genocide in the Wildflower State has now been shown in mainstream settings of corporate boardrooms, schools and on screened on national TV, generating historical awareness in a new generation, and providing the impetus for a new State Government redress scheme. Applying this cyclical framework allows truth telling to be understood not as a one-off event, but as an ongoing process, where what can be spoken and what can be heard develops over time.

This study examines how Arab educational counselors in Israel navigated their professional roles when institutional guidelines promoted student expression while the political climate demanded silence about Palestinian collective memory and suffering. Using a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight Arab counselors (October 2023-March 2024) from different school settings and religious backgrounds. The study reveals the contradictions these professionals faced. Arab citizens of Israel carry collective memory of displacement and loss since 1948 (the Nakba), but this memory has been systematically silenced in Israeli schools for decades. Palestinian history is excluded from the curriculum, and teachers discussing it risk being fired. During the war, this silencing intensified: over 250 Arab citizens were arrested for social media posts about Gaza, creating widespread fear. Ministry of Education guidelines told counselors to create 'safe spaces' for student expression, but Arab students could not speak about their grief over Palestinian deaths in Gaza without potential consequences. The guidelines were written for Jewish students and translated to Arabic, ignoring Arab students' experiences. Counselors described feeling 'like traitors' and having to separate their personal identity from their professional role. They experienced broken trust with Jewish colleagues, increased surveillance, and the burden of censoring student expression while supposedly encouraging it. Despite these pressures, counselors created private support groups for Arab parents and built informal networks for mutual support. Key findings show that collective memory silenced for decades continues to shape professional practice during conflict. The study reveals the cost paid by minority professionals who must enforce erasure of their own community's history and current suffering. It demonstrates how state control over memory operates through everyday institutional practices in schools, offering insights for understanding memory politics in contested societies