What comes next for Confederate statues? Memory Project suggests looking to Germany for answers A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville that white supremacist protesters rallied around in 2017. (Source: Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury) By Elizabeth Holmes | April 14, 2021 at 6:14 PM EDT - Updated April 14 at 9:51 PM CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - Now that Charlottesville can take down its Confederate monuments, what happens next? Researchers, authors and activists say we should look to Germany for answers. The Memory Project of University of Virginia’s Democracy Initiative held a webinar called “Memorializing Racial Trauma: What Americans Can Learn from the Germans” with Dr. Susan Neiman - an author, philosopher, and German history expert - to learn how post-war Germany redressed the trauma and violence perpetrated by the Third Reich.