The right approach

False truth: history is not a weapon

She can still laugh, even if she sometimes feels quite different: political scientist Ljiljana Radonić researches wars and genocides and their depictions, falsifications and so on. Take the Second World War, for example: the photos show victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as part of an exhibition on site.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/stock.adobe.com/zVg/Radovic)

Learning from the atrocities of the past protects us today from threats to peace, freedom and democracy. However, falsified representations of the past or deductions from it turn history into a political weapon. So how can history be portrayed in such a way that this does not happen? How do you avoid falling into the trap of distorted truths? We asked the expert.

Wars, genocides, suffering: political scientist Ljiljana Radonić from the Institute of Cultural Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) is confronted with this every day in her work. What is so fascinating about it? "It's not about fascination," she explains, "but about the fact that a critical reappraisal of the - criminal - past is essential for a reasonably sensible coexistence today."