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Webinar: From Evidence to Resilience: Memory in an Age of Distortion

Event to mark the 85th anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre.

Invitation:

From Evidence to Resilience: Memory in an Age of Distortion

Tuesday September 22, 2026 15:00-16.30 CET / 09.00-10.30 EST

This year marks the 85th anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre. To commemorate this anniversary, and coincident with the 10th anniversary of the foundation of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), Democ and the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center invite you to a joint webinar exploring how historical memory is preserved, contested and repurposed, and what this means for societies confronting extremism and historical distortion today.

Eighty-five years after the massacre at Babyn Yar, the ways in which societies encounter and understand the past are changing. As living memory recedes, digital technologies are transforming access to historical sources, while historical narratives increasingly circulate through online environments in which evidence, memory, misinformation and ideological interpretation frequently compete. These questions have acquired renewed urgency as extremist actors revive and repurpose longstanding narratives, grievances and conspiracies to frame contemporary social and geopolitical events, while the memory of more recent atrocities, including the Holocaust and the genocide of the Roma, is itself distorted, contested and instrumentalised.

The discussion will explore archives, digitisation and AI as tools for widening access to historical evidence and challenging distortion; the ways in which historical memory is contested and manipulated; and how narratives, myths and grievances from the past are repurposed within contemporary extremist ecosystems.

The conversation will serve to explore the webinar’s overarching question:

How can remembrance equip people to recognise these processes in the present, ensuring that historical knowledge is not sealed in the past but becomes a tool for navigating today’s challenges?

Speakers

Inna Kalenska, Chief Operating Officer, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center

Niv Zonis, International Project Manager, Democ

Alexander Ritzmann, Senior Advisor, Counter Extremism Project (CEP)

Moderator: Juncal Fernández-Garayzábal, PhD

Development & Program Manager, Counter Extremism Project (CEP)

We look forward to seeing you there.

The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) is a nonprofit and non-partisan international policy organization working to combat the growing threat posed by extremist ideologies.

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