Four Members of the Museum’s Staff Attended the AABS Conference at Stanford University, USA

Standford University held the 2018 Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies from 1 to 3 June. The conference was held in the year of the 100th anniversaries of the Baltic States and the 15th anniversary of AABS. In 124 sessions, several hundred participants gave academic reports and held discussions which were divided into 15 different themes.  

Among the participants of the conference were four members of the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia’s staff, who therefore brought the museum's name into the international academic circle.

The first academic session of the conference was on oral history projects in the Baltic States. It was organized and directed by Lelde Neimane, the head of the museum's audiovisual collection; Evita Feldentāle, who also works in the collection, assisted her. For several years, the museum’s audiovisual collection has been collaborating with Stanford University libraries on a project to digitalize and preserve more than 2000 video testimonials.

At session 46, on the culture of memory and the commemoration of occupations, Uldis Neiburgs spoke about Salaspils camp and its memorial history, memory and politics. Valters Nollendorfs also spoke about the museum’s new permanent exhibition; the concept, planning and story. The museum was a contributor to Salaspils Memorial's new exhibition as Uldis Neiburgs acted as one of the curators. The museum’s management participated in the opening of the new exhibition on 7 February. In turn, the planning stage of the museum's new exhibition will soon end and the implementation will begin, as this summer the museum’s Building for the Future will finally start construction.

During session 46’s panel discussion Valters Nollendorfs shared his memories on the history of AABS. Nollendorfs has a long memory of the institution as he has held many AABS positions including president, academic executive director and the head of the Baltic office.