The memory of the Second World War has remained a heavily disputed subject in the Baltic States, where the narratives of the Soviet and Nazi occupations continue to remain competitive. In my presentation I will focus on women's memory of the Second World War in the Baltic States involving both majority and minority communities memory, its intergenerational transmission and the legacies of its silencing. What are the sites for remembering women's suffering in this simultaneously distant and closeby war in the Baltic States? What kind of difficult knowledge does this memory represent in the context of the rising right-wing regimes? How do their engagements repair histories in this context? Visual and literary works have carried an important role in opening up new public discussions about the subject and bringing the topic to the foreground. My starting point in the paper are two literary works by Agate Nesaule "A Woman in Amber" (1995) and Imbi Paju's "Memories Denied" (documentary film 2005, book 2006). Both books published abroad have initiated important debates in Estonia and Latvia about violence experienced by women during the war. Acknowledging this context, I will further analyse recent art works by third generation artists Dīana Dimza-Dimme, Kati Roover, Ülo Pikkov and Vilma Samulionyte all of whom discuss intergenerational memories by turning women's war time trauma and sometimes the mechanisms of their silencing and forgetting into the main focuses of their work.
