Online meeting entitled "Children of Reconciliation", which took place on 9th of June 2021, opened a series of events as part of the "8 x Reconciliation" program on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Polish-German neighborly treaty.
The main part of this event was an interview with Elisabeth Seidler and Wojciech Mazowiecki. Their fathers: Manfred Seidler, spokesman of the Polish Commission of the Bensberg Circle, and Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Poland's first democratic prime minister, belonged to the generation that, having experienced the drama of World War II, initiated the process of Polish-German reconciliation.
The guests talked about their first meetings with Germans and Poles in the 1960s and 1970s, which took place despite unfavorable political conditions and still very vivid traumatic experiences from the war. They both agreed that reconciliation takes place primarily through personal contacts and friendships between specific people from both countries. In conclusion, Elisabeth Seidler said that empathy and curiosity about the other party's perspective play a key role in the reconciliation effort, because in this way it is possible to discover not only differences but also similarities. Wojciech Mazowiecki emphasized that Germans and Poles are united in a common Europe and therefore bear joint responsibility in the face of current global challenges. According to him, reconciliation consists in the normality of mutual relations. "Let's not spoil it," said Wojciech Mazowiecki at the end.
The event was attended by representatives of partner communes Świdnica and Lampertheim. The participants were greeted by the mayor of Lampertheim, Gottfried Störmer, and the deputy mayor of the Świdnica commune, Bartłomiej Strózik. The long-term cooperation between the Nicolaus Copernicus school in Pszenno and the Alfred Delp school in Lampertheim has been presented in short films. Then five people from Germany and Poland shared their experiences, for whom participation in various forms of youth exchange around 20 years ago had a decisive impact on their biographies - both professionally and privately.
The meeting was prepared in cooperation with the Freya von Moltke Foundation for the New Kreisau and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and financed by:
