Coming to terms with the German and Latin American past

When Iliana Alamilla looks back on the last few days she gets a lump in her throat. She says she's been deeply moved by the memorial site of a former concentration camp and by talks with a victim of the former Stasi regime.

Alamilla is from Guatemala and the chief editor of the news agency, Cerigua. Like many others in her country, she too lost friends and colleagues in the decades-long civil war. "Many of us still don’'t know what really happened," she says. Forty years on, and there's still little talk about the country’s violent internal conflict.

Parallels to their own history

Working through the past at the Sachsenhausen former concentration camp

The four Guatemalan and 13 Colombian journalists have spent a week in deep discussion, visiting memorial sites in and around Berlin and speaking with witnesses of that period. Participants are constantly comparing Germany's history with that of their own countries. As journalists, reporters and university lecturers the work of each participant focuses primarily on the "culture of memory".

Whether they're speaking with Der Spiegel's Michael Sontheimer, a journalist and author of several books on Germany's recent history, visiting the archives of the former Stasi or the memorial site of the former concentration camp Sachsenhausen, the participants have been listening intently, asking questions and closely examining historical references.

"The journalists are looking for parallels to their own countries," says Vera Freitag, the DW Akademie trainer in charge of the program, "and they're intent on catching every single detail."

"This feels like a film"

Colombian investigative journalist, Ginna Morelo

It's cold and Ginna Morelo is walking around the former concentration camp, wrapped in her winter jacket, scarf and woolen hat. She's an investigative journalist with the Colombian daily paper, El Tiempo, and is taken aback by how thoroughly Germany has worked through its past.

"I almost cried when I went into the reconstructed barrack," she says. The journalists are moved deeply when they see the prisoners' cramped living conditions, as they listen to the Spanish-speaking guide who takes them on an intensive tour of the grounds.

"This feels like a film," says Juan Diego Restrepo from Colombia. He is the head of the interactive Internet portal "Verdad Abierta", located in the country's second-largest city, Medellín, and is especially interested in how individuals perceive history.

Victims of the insurgents and prosecutors can upload documents onto his Internet platform and testify to the wrongdoings they experienced. "I'd be interested to know what Germans on the street would say about Hitler being remembered," he says, "and how they feel about concentration camps being turned into memorial sites."

It takes time

Discussing memory culture at the Sachsenhausen memorial site

Compared to Germany, however, the civil war and human rights violations in Guatemala and Colombia are still recent and remain volatile. Guatemalan politicians who were once warmongers in the 1980s are now highly influential. "People who want to tackle the issues are labeled as leftists or told to focus on drug trafficking problems instead of digging up the past," says the Guatemalan journalist Flor de María Pérez.

But dealing with the past, and the memories, can take time. During an intensive discussion that followed the visit to the Sachsenhausen former concentration camp, Horst Seferens, speaker for Brandenburg's memorial sites, said it's often the grandchildren who are the ones who start looking and questioning the past. With their coaxing, he says, many of the victims are finally able to start working through their own experiences. But for the second generation, he added it's still far too close.

"What we've seen here is the dark side of the story," says Flor de María Pérez. "Although the horrors will stay with us, there is a side that’s hopeful: Germany has managed to overcome its past and is now prospering." Perhaps one day, she says, her own grandchildren will be able to commemorate Guatemala's violent past in a way that is fitting and appropriate.


The journalists' information tour is part of DW Akademie's projects focusing on coming to terms with Colombia's and Guatemala's recent past. The projects are funded by Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ).