Kolonialkrieg im visuellen Familiengedächtnis. Erinnerungsproduktion durch transgenerationale Albumpraktiken in Südtirol/Alto Adige

Abstract

So far, historians have considered private war albums primarily as autobiographical sources. This article, however, takes a different perspective: It starts from the premise that the meaning-making process of war experiences is not something that remained confined to the veteran generation, but is a transgenerational memory work. How children and grandchildren position themselves in relation to experiences of violence and war can be seen in the way how they use the albums of their (grand)fathers. By drawing on a methodologically combined approach, this article examines the social lives of colonial war albums from the 1935–1941 Italian-Ethiopian War kept by families in South Tyrol/Alto Adige and argues that interventions of (grand)children do not violate the authenticity of albums, but must be understood and analysed as meaning-bearing components of their complex object biographies.