"Remember. August 23" - international public awareness and educational campaign about the victims of totalitarian regimes

WARSAW, Poland, Aug. 22, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- 23 August marks the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of all Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes established fifteen years ago by the European Parliament on the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This symbolic agreement between two totalitarian states, representing the Nazi and the Communist regime, gave rise to the tragedy of millions of people. Similarly to previous years, the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ESPS) invites you to take part in its international public awareness and educational campaign called "Remember. August 23", to acquaint Europeans with the tragic consequences of those events. 

The agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 not only triggered the outbreak of World War II, by also paved the way to its consequences – from mass deportations and genocide, through forced labour, war crimes, to the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing. For numerous European nations, this meant long-lasting subjugation, and territorial, material and personal losses. The "Remember. August 23" campaign calls for both making a lasting impression of this symbolic date in our memory, and for exploring the fate of people whose life was marked by their fight against totalitarian regimes. This is the role of, among others, short videos devoted to the stories of people from various parts of Europe.

The hero of this year's edition is Borys Romanchenko (1926-2022), a Ukrainian activist, Holocaust survivor, prisoner of concentration camps, and the victim of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. In previous years, the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity prepared videos about the fate of Kazimierz Moczarski, Mala Zimetbaum and Edek Galiński, Władysław Bartoszewski, Doina Cornea, Iava Lase, Jaan Kross, Milada Horákova, Juliana Zarchi, and Péter Mansfeld. All the biographies share a proactive stance in respect of defending the truth and human dignity.

The videos are accompanied by a media and outdoor campaign in the centres of European capitals, including Warsaw, Vilnius, and Berlin. The European Network Remembrance and Solidarity also prepared a special 23 August commemoration guide and pins with a black band that you can wear as a gesture of remembrance about millions of victims of totalitarian regimes. The pins are available at the ESPS office at 37 Zielna St. in Warsaw and in selected establishments that have joined the campaign.

The videos about the heroes, the commemoration guide, the list of locations where pins are distributed, and historical and educational articles are available at https://enrs.eu/august23 

As part of the Campaign, ESPS will present and distribute the pins during the 19th National Selection Session of the European Youth Parliament (EYP) in Łódź.

The European Network Remembrance and Solidarity is an international undertaking whose aim is to shape the discourse on the European history of the 20th and 21st centuries and on the methods of remembrance, with particular emphasis on the period of dictatorships, wars, and social resistance to subjugation.