National Pedagogy of Memory Programme in Budapest

Case study of the National Pedagogy of Memory Programme at the Fiumei Road Cemetery and the National Park of Mourning in Budapest, Hungary.

About the Programme

The National Pedagogy of Memory Programme is a comprehensive, nation-level educational initiative in Hungary operating at the intersection of experiential learning, history education, and cultural identity. Implemented through a strategic partnership between the National Heritage Institute (NÖRI) and the Klebelsberg Centre, the programme spans 53 national and historical memorials.

The programme directly challenges the common public perception of cemeteries as static spaces of mourning. Instead, it reframes them as dynamic "open classrooms" and cultural landscapes where history comes alive through individual human stories.

For more comprehensive information about the initiative, please visit the official page of The National Heritage Institute.

Case Study

The complete case study is fully accessible on the European Cemeteries Route website.

The published materials encompass the three-level pedagogical methodology, academic attendance figures, detailed 5-point scale statistical evaluations from teachers and students, as well as qualitative student testimonials and multimedia resources.

Event video overviews are also featured here:

• Fiumei Road Cemetery Programme
• NEP Memorial Visits – Overview Video

WDEC 2026 at Pobrežje Cemetery

As part of WDEC 2026, Pogrebno podjetje Maribor, the presiding member of ASCE, has prepared several educational and socially important activities at Pobrežje Cemetery in Maribor, Slovenia.

Cultural Days for Elementary School Students

On 18 May, a cultural day was held at Pobrežje Cemetery for pupils of OŠ Ludvika Pliberška Maribor, followed by a second cultural day on 26 May for pupils of OŠ Toneta Čufarja Maribor. Both events offered students an alternative learning environment in which they explored the history of the city and its inhabitants through commemorative narratives and heritage interpretation, with the help of the mobile app Artour.

The activities enabled pupils to engage with Maribor’s past in a direct and experiential way. They strengthened understanding of cultural heritage, fostered respectful attitudes towards memorial spaces, and encouraged reflection on memory, tradition, and intergenerational connection. The cemetery was presented as a place of learning, calm, and cultural diversity, reinforcing its role within the city’s historical identity.

Bereavement Support Project

On 26 May, the first group meeting within the project “Grief does not heal in isolation; together it is easier to bear” was held in the multipurpose hall of Pogrebno podjetje Maribor at Pobrežje Cemetery, marking the launch of a new series of monthly bereavement support sessions.

The initiative addressed the continuing need for structured support for individuals coping with the loss of a loved one, extending care beyond the funeral period when grief often becomes most intense. It was emphasized that grief should not be understood as something to be “fixed,” but rather as a natural process requiring time, understanding, and a supportive environment.

The programme created a safe space for sharing experiences and emotions and promoted a more open societal understanding of bereavement. The sessions were facilitated by internationally accredited coach and mentor Ana Kordeš, who highlighted the importance of time, space, and compassionate presence in the grieving process.

Slovenian Cemeteries Route Project

The WDEC 2026 focused on the theme Quality Education, in alignment with Goal 4 of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Within this framework, the Association of Significant Cemeteries of Europe, under the presidency of Lidija Pliberšek, Director of Pogrebno podjetje Maribor, together with the Chamber of Public Utilities of Slovenia (ZKGS), launched a joint initiative – the Slovenian Cemeteries Route project.

Inspired by the internationally recognised European Cemeteries Route, the project aims to connect Slovenian cemeteries into a unique cultural and tourist network that preserves memory, promotes heritage, and opens cemetery spaces to a wider public.

As part of the initiative, cemetery managers across Slovenia were invited to identify three key points of cultural or historical significance at each site, including notable individuals, monuments, or distinctive landscape features. The collected contributions will form the basis for a nationwide map of cemeteries interpreted through cultural and historical heritage.

You can find more information about the Slovenian Cemeteries Route project HERE or explore the route through the dedicated application.

WDEC 2026 in Barcelona Cemeteries

As part of the WDEC 2026, Cementiris de Barcelona is showcasing its educational programme “Life Lessons: Cemeteries as Educational Heritage”.

About the programme

One of the pillars of Cementiris de Barcelona is its educational service, which works to promote Barcelona’s cemeteries as cultural assets of exceptional importance, fostering public knowledge and helping to normalize death. This mission is reflected in the programme "Life Lessons: Cemeteries as Educational Heritage". Although featured during WDEC 2026, the programme is not limited to this one week. Educational activities are conducted throughout the year across several Barcelona cemeteries, demonstrating the organisation’s long-term commitment to learning, cultural heritage, and community engagement.

The educational activities, tailored to various learning stages, offer a unique opportunity to explore the rich funerary heritage of the Poblenou and Montjuïc cemeteries—both classified as monumental by the Council of Europe—as well as the Funeral Carriage Collection, the Funerary Library, and other cemeteries in Barcelona. Together, these sites represent a significant cultural legacy and a collective memory shared by society.

This initiative is led by the team at Cementiris de Barcelona: highly qualified professionals committed to continuous improvement, who balance compassionate care for families during the farewell process with excellence in educational outreach. By engaging students in meaningful educational experiences, the educators foster deep respect for heritage preservation while working to normalise death as an essential, natural part of life.

By addressing a fundamental topic that remains taboo for many, these activities provide a supportive space for reflection. The subject of mortality is approached with the utmost respect for diverse beliefs, religions, and cultural traditions, allowing participants to fully appreciate the rich symbolic expressions that define Barcelona’s funerary heritage.

You can read more about the programme HERE.

WDEC 2026 at the City cemetery "Pri Sv. Duhu"

City Cemetery “Pri Sv. Duhu” in Koprivnica, Croatia, marked WDEC 2026 with an educational walk for high school students and a new promotional video.

City cemetery promotional video

As part of the Week of Discovering European Cemeteries (WDEC), held from 22 to 31 May 2026 and organized by the Association of Significant Cemeteries in Europe (ASCE), the City Cemetery “Pri Sv. Duhu” in Koprivnica, managed by Komunalac LLC, once again took part in this significant annual event. As a member of ASCE, the Koprivnica cemetery promotes the value of cemeteries as places of cultural heritage, history, art, and memory through its activities.

On this occasion, a new promotional video about the city cemetery was produced. Cemeteries are much more than places of remembrance – they are open-air museums and guardians of local history, architecture, and cultural heritage. Through this video, Komunalac LLC invites visitors to take a walk through the cemetery and discover its peace, artistic value, and the stories of notable individuals who have shaped our city. You can watch the video HERE.

Educational walk for students

This year’s event theme focuses on knowledge and quality education for young people, with the aim of introducing them to cultural heritage, history and important people through an interesting and student-friendly approach.

As part of the program, an educational walk through the city cemetery was held on May 28, 2026, with the participation of first-grade students from the “Fran Galović” General High School, accompanied by their class teacher Mišela Lokotar and history teacher Maja Maček Trešcec. The educational tour was led by cemetery manager Josipa Loinjak and horticultural engineer Nataša Njegovec along a pre-planned route designed for high school students.

Learning about heritage and sustainability

During the tour, the students learned about the history of the cemetery and its significance for the local community, as well as interesting facts about notable individuals and important historical events. They also explored the cemetery’s landscape, horticultural, and architectural values. Special emphasis was placed on raising awareness of the importance of preserving cultural heritage and respecting spaces of memory.

In addition to the educational content, the students had the opportunity to learn about the cemetery’s new, more advanced waste separation system, which helps reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills and increases the share of recyclable materials.

WDEC 2026 at the Lower Cemetery of Volintiri

On 26 May 2026, a special guided walk for local students took place at the Lower Cemetery of Volintiri (Moldova), focusing on education, memory and local history.

A guided walk for local pupils

As part of WDEC 2026, the Volintiri Municipality and the “Maria Biesu” local school organised a special guided walk for students at the Lower Cemetery of Volintiri on 26 May 2026. Bringing together education, local heritage and community memory, the activity invited pupils to explore the graves of local teachers and reflect on the lasting role of educators in shaping local identity, values and history.

At the cemetery, pupils discovered that local heritage is not only preserved in books, but also in places that keep the community’s memory alive. Guided by two local teachers—Ms Angela Tih (school director) and Mr Stepan Efremov (history teacher)—the group walked from one grave to another, focusing on the resting places of educators and school staff who shaped generations in Volintiri.

The visit was designed as a learning journey. At each stop, pupils were encouraged to listen, ask questions and reflect: What does a teacher leave behind? How do schools and families carry values forward? How does a village remember those who served it? These discussions naturally connected education with identity and civic responsibility, showing that “quality education” is also about respect, gratitude and continuity.

From remembrance to action

A key moment of the activity focused on preserving memory. We talked about the importance of maintaining teachers’ graves, especially those who no longer have relatives able to care for them, as well as renewing a local tradition of visiting these places with pupils to clean and maintain them. In this way, remembrance becomes action and offers pupils a practical lesson in community responsibility.

To extend learning beyond the cemetery visit, pupils were encouraged to continue the conversation at home by starting with a simple question: “What does the word cemetery mean?” This helped connect school learning with family dialogue, strengthening intergenerational understanding of local history and heritage.

Through this activity, the Lower Cemetery became more than a place of remembrance—it became a meaningful learning space where education meets memory, and where pupils can see how local history is preserved through people, places and shared responsibility.

Photos from the event

*Photos source: www.facebook.com/PrimariaVolintiri

WDEC 2026: Quality education

The 2026 Week of Discovering European Cemeteries will focus on the role cemeteries play in enabling, implementing and promoting quality education.

Theme of WDEC 2026

The Week of Discovering European Cemeteries 2026 will once again be held as a central activity within the framework of the ASCE initiative Significant Cemeteries for Sustainable Europe. Following the pattern established in 2024 and 2025, the initiative aligns its activities with one of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals, illustrating how cemeteries can contribute to a more sustainable society. 

Scheduled from May 22 to May 31, 2026, the WDEC 2026 will focus on Goal 4: Quality education and will take place within the same thematic context as the ASCE Schools on Cemeteries project, offering expanded opportunities for innovative activities and new cooperation.

This emphasis on education is perfectly suited to cemeteries because they are not only places of remembrance but also open-air museums and unique classrooms where history, art, and culture intersect. They provide countless opportunities for learning about the individuals who shaped our communities, the values that guided them, and the importance of education and knowledge in building a more sustainable future.

Main orientations for your activities

We encourage all ASCE members to use the WDEC 2026 theme as a framework for organizing engaging and innovative activities. As you plan your programs, consider the following guiding principles:

• Why is education important in sustainable development? Explore the role of knowledge and education in creating environmentally and socially responsible communities, and consider how cemeteries can contribute to this process.
• Who were the important educators in city history? Look for the graves and stories of teachers, professors, philanthropists, scientists, artists, and reformers who helped to shape the educational landscape and intellectual life of your city.
• What is sustainable education? Consider how the conservation of cemetery heritage itself is a form of sustainable education, and what specific lessons about ecology, history, or social equity can your cemetery offer?
• How education changed life in a city? Plan tours or workshops focusing on historical figures whose educational contributions led to significant social, technological, or political changes in your community.

Your programs could include guided thematic tours, educational workshops for all generations, exhibitions about local educational pioneers, or digital projects that bring these stories to a wider audience.

Share your activities

We invite you to share programs, photos and other materials of your planned activities during WDEC 2026 ba using the form below. We will be happy to publish them on the ASCE website and our social media channels.

➤ SUBMISSION FORM

Renewal of the Quality Seal for educational activities

Cementiris de Barcelona renewed its Quality Seal for educational activities with an Educational Project that was reviewed and approved by the Technical Secretariat of the Pedagogical Innovation Council (CIP).

Cemeteries as learning spaces

Cemeteries represent a historical and artistic legacy that is fundamental for understanding the social and cultural evolution of the populations that preceded us. At the same time, they allow us to better understand the present that surrounds us and help students develop a critical perspective on the world around them.

The social value of cemeteries lies in their representation of the collective memory that unites us as a society and in the understanding of death as a natural part of life. Likewise, aware of the link that cemeteries have with the territory that surrounds them and the people who live there, Cementiris de Barcelona collaborates with schools and districts to nurture a sense of neighbourhood belonging and respect for its heritage.

About the Educational Project

The Educational Project considers the various skills outlined in the school curriculum, aiming to provide pupils and teachers with additional tools to share knowledge and understand different situations from both the past and the present. To effectively address the needs of the curriculum, it focuses on specific competencies that Barcelona Cemeteries, as an organisation, is capable of contributing.

Firstly, the six vectors of Barcelona’s new basic education curriculum have been taken into account. These vectors are designed to foster a society that is critical, sustainable, digital, more equitable, feminist, and democratic. For this reason, three of the six vectors have been considered as the fundamental basis of the Educational Project: competency learning, gender perspective, and global awareness combined with emotional well-being.

On the other hand, the transversal competences of the new curriculum have also been taken into account, particularly civic competence, entrepreneurial competence, personal, social and learning to learn competence and digital competence. Of these, Cementiris de Barcelona's Educational Project includes citizenship competence and personal, social and learning to learn competence.

The T900 project: A bridge between generations

The T900 project, promoted by the Associazione Amici della Certosa di Bologna, aims to preserve the memory of the Certosa Monumental Cemetery in Bologna through art.

A place of memory

The Certosa Monumental Cemetery, which houses many of the Bologna families of the past, is an architectural work of great artistic and historical value. The tombs found here, true funerary artistic works, are designated MONUMENTUM, in Latin REMEMBRANCE, a place of memory and testimony for future generations.

About the T900 project

The project promoted by the Associazione Amici della Certosa di Bologna, focusing on individual significant tombs from the 20th century, aims to create a bridge between the past, present, and future, and to preserve over time the MEMORY that has been entrusted to us.

Through the active and direct participation of students, members of the Association, and Bologna citizens, a pilot project has come to life, aimed at increasing awareness of a growing number of funerary monuments. T900, conceived and coordinated by architect Francisco Pérez Amitrano, Vice President of the Association, has benefited from the collaboration of the Museo civico del Risorgimento of the Municipality of Bologna.

It has been presented at the Certosa with new itineraries, coinciding with the Week of Discovering European Cemeteries at the end of the school year.

Public presentation and archiving

In 2024, for the second consecutive year, students and teachers from the high school Liceo Artistico F. Arcangeli of Bologna, along with researchers and photographers from the Association, publicly presented their participation in the "Tombs ’900" project: students with graphic drawings and renderings of the tombs, and members with archival research and high-quality photographic documentation.

The collected materials are preserved by the Associazione Amici della Certosa with a dual intent: to build a growing archive for the benefit of the community and to foster in young students the MEMORY of their city.

Schools on Cemeteries

The Associazione Amici della Certosa di Bologna actively participates in the ASCE Schools on Cemeteries project and the T900 project is an excellent example of how to involve schoolchildren and youth in learning and preservation of cultural heritage in cemeteries through art.