The conference, organised by Albania’s Institute for the Study of the Crimes and Consequences of Communism in cooperation with Romania’s Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of Romanian Exile, is addressing monuments and sites of memory, the museumification of communism, transitional justice, education and collective memory.

“Regimes try to use public space to project power and history. Here too, we can see traces of the history of communism,” said Çelo Hoxha, director of Albania’s Institute for the Study of Communist Crimes.

Luciana Jinga of Romania’s Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes said the memory of communism remained more visible in Albania than in Romania.

“We are here to talk about what we still preserve of the cultural and material memory of communism in the former communist countries,” Jinga said.

Rajmund Fakete, a director at Hungary’s counterpart institution, stressed the importance of passing such memories to younger generations who have no personal knowledge or experience of the period.

The event also featured an exhibition titled “Traces of War in the Historical Memory of the Communist Regime in Albania”, aimed at raising public awareness of communist-era crimes and their consequences.

The exhibition focuses on plaques installed during the communist period on the walls of key state institutions in Tirana. The plaques commemorate acts of seizure of state property carried out by communist armed groups in 1942-43.

According to the exhibition organisers, the communist regime used the plaques to commemorate events it considered important to the country’s liberation from fascist occupation and to convey messages of sacrifice and heroism to younger generations.

The photographs displayed were taken in June and August 2025. The exhibition examines how the plaques commemorated acts described by the organisers as theft, a form of behaviour historically condemned by societies and states, including Albania’s communist regime.

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