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In the aftermath of tragedy, societies often grapple with the daunting task of confronting difficult heritage, processing wounds felt by individuals and families. The case of the ‘Camp Speicher’ was a project led by the Organisation of Iraq Victims in Speicher that focused on post-atrocity remembrance and community-based memorialisation. The non-governmental organisation documented families’ experiences dealing with the trauma of atrocities witnessed in 2014, which saw the killings of thousands of people in and around the provincial capital Tikrit, in the province of Salahadeen.
The US-based International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, an NGO working globally to support local organisations in remembrance and collective memory research and practice, offered capacity building for the project’s key team members. International Coalition of Sites of Conscience offered training to the Organisation of Iraq Victims in Speicher as well as members of the UNESCO Chair on Genocide Prevention Studies in the Islamic World (based at the College of Arts, University of Baghdad) on international practice and standards covering topics such as: understanding the role of memorialisation; basic principles of memory and truth telling, emotional trauma and risk; inclusive and participatory approaches to memorialisation; and planning memorialisation actions.
Since its start, the project has documented families’ experience dealing with trauma, namely through interviews in multiple Iraqi provinces, has supported the organisation and professionalization of a digital archive of the ‘Speicher Camp’ massacres and its aftermath, has drafted a research book – led by the UNESCO Chair on Genocide Prevention Studies in the Islamic World – and has held an exhibition about the project in the Prime Minister’s Office building as well as at the University of Technology and the University of Baghdad. Other components of the project include building new knowledge amongst key stakeholders on ways in which trauma-affected histories can be recorded professionally and presented in ways that do not harm or detrimentally affect social relations.
