Sklavenhandel als Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit –: Geschichtskultur, Gedenken und Geschichtswissenschaft in Europa

Abstract

This essay focuses on the consequences that new perspectives on slavery and slave trade as well as the political functionalising of the past are having on historical sciences, addressing the recent forms of public commemoration of slavery and slave trade in European countries. This debate is especially fostered by the global discourse on coming to terms with the past and the UN-declaration of slavery as a crime against humanity. The differing narratives on slavery from governments, museums, victims, historians and NGOs are shaping the historical awareness within European societies. The breaking of silence on slave trade is resulting in various commemoration activities, exhibitions, slavery monuments and new research institutions. Thus the need for specific attention and research in the field of politicized public history and the upholding of their scientific standards against a normative history narrative is emerging within historical sciences. Only in this way can history produce insight in the mechanisms of guilt, responsibility and historical injustice.