Conclusion and future prospects

What can we, as adult educators and learners, learn from history of our own and of other Europeans from the democratic future of our countries? Through new studies it is possible to open up old silences and to learn empathy, if only the researcher has the time to listen and to read new sources. Finnish historians have brought forward and re-evaluated the emotional qualities of oral histories from the war period and found new strengths in these sources. Emotional tones in sources have changed from weaknesses into strengths of historical research. Quoting postdoctoral researcher Heli Kananen: ”The feelings of shame and injustice felt by the Greek Orthodox internal migrants when being mocked, laughed at and called names, left a deep memory trace, and it was helpful of reawakening those memories later, too.” It is crucial for the researcher to create a kind of safe space which enables the interviewee to describe his or her experience without the need to protect him- or herself. This is an important lesson to learn for many different actors dealing with memory-work and the past.

In adult education it is possible to create new partnerships between museums and artistic recreation premises in order to find the safe spaces necessary for reminiscing, for interviewing and for producing creations based on memory-work. In an example from Helinä Rautavaara Museum’s past activities, a 71-old child evacuee created a digistory using reminiscing, personal objects, photos and archival material. Public social media material can give good examples of different styles, by second and third generation reminiscing and creating therapeutic contents. A popular one is a vlog “Lotta ja pappa” by a 3rd generation young woman who interviews her grandfather and sings with him songs of her Karelian grandpa’s youth.⁶