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Newsletter Krzyżowa 2/2021

Ladies and Gentlemen,

we present the second edition of the Krzyżowa Foundation Newsletter this year. In recent months, the next wave of the coronavirus pandemic still prevented us from returning to normal activities, youth exchanges and meetings in Krzyżowa. However, using the possibilities of online formats, we have implemented many projects addressed to a wide audience and developed our publishing activity, not only in the form of traditional publications, but also multimedia materials. One of the most important events of this year is the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Polish-German Treaty of Good Neighbourship and Friendly Cooperation. On this occasion, we have prepared a series of events that will take place in the coming months. You can read about the meaning of this treaty from the perspective of Krzyżowa in the KRZYŻOWA FORUM section. There you will also find an article by Jolanta Steciuk "Krzyżowa - reconciliation in practice", devoted to the challenges of education, which was published in the MOCAK Forum magazine, published by the MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow.

In this issue of the newsletter we also present reports from important events: the celebrations on the first anniversary of Ewa Unger's death, the eighteenth edition of the Seminar of Eastern and Western European Memorials in Krzyżowa and the XXIX Brno Symposium "Dialog in the middle of Europe". We present the publication by Annemarie Franke „To nie wrogowie, to ludzie, Das sind keine Feinde, sondern Menschen. Ewa Unger (1926-2020)" and a new series of educational videos" Krzyżowa invites you to create ". In the newsletter you will also find information about selected projects of the Krzyżowa Foundation that took place or started this winter and spring.

Easing the restrictions related to the pandemic allows us to return, at least to a limited extent, to the implementation of projects in the traditional, stationary form in Krzyżowa. Therefore, we hope that in the next issue of the Newsletter we will present you with fewer pictures of screenshots from the videoconference and more reports from our courtyard and workshop rooms.

Newsletter Editors

KRZYŻOWA FORUM

THE PERPECTIVE OF KRZYZOWA. On The 30th Anniversary of the signing of the Polish-German ‘Good Neighbours and Friendly Cooperation Treaty’

On the 17th of June, 1991, Poland and Germany signed a ‘Good Neighbours and Friendly Cooperation Treaty’.
This Treaty formed the third part of a ‘triad’ that unfolded as efforts were taken to build a solid foundation for a new quality of Polish-German relations. This triad consisted of:
1. The Reconciliation Mass in Krzyzowa (this opened up new opportunities for dialog),
2. ‘The German-Polish Border Treaty’ (1990) (this treaty settled long standing territorial issued), and thirdly,
3. The ‘Good Neighbours and Friendly Cooperation Treaty’, (designed to create a solid foundation for political, economic, social, scientific and cultural reconciliation).

The Treaty is particularly important to our Foundation. It was on its basis that the Polish-German Youth Cooperation was established, which contributed to the development of the International Youth Meeting Center in Krzyżowa - one of the largest centers of this type in Europe. Over the past thirty years, the Center has managed to implement thousands of educational projects with the participation of tens of thousands of young Europeans, mainly Poles and Germans.

Krzyżowa - reconciliation in practice || Jolanta Steciuk

Imagine a place where a dream has come true. In a former state farm, surrounded by dilapidated farm buildings and a palace with a hole in the roof, the leaders of two countries burdened with the trauma of war met. In a joint effort, Poles and Germans, supported by friends from other countries, created in this place - in the Lower Silesian village in Krzyżowa - an international meeting house.

It was 1989, Poland was emerging from communism, Germany was on the road to reunification. Architects, engineers and gardeners began to build bridges across the divide - despite a difficult shared history, differences in legal systems, shortages of supplies, transport problems. The assumption was to work in international teams, although it would have been faster, easier with colleagues from one's own country.

IN THIS ISSUE

The project "8 x Reconciliation". EVENT PROGRAMME

The Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe together with partners: the Freya von Moltke Foundation for the New Kreisau and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation invite you to participate in the program entitled „8 x Reconciliation”, commemorating 30th anniversary of signing the The Polish-German Treaty of Good Neighbourship and Friendly Cooperation.

The treaty, concluded between Poland and Germany on 17th of June 1991, made it possible to enormously develop cultural, scientific and regional cooperation and laid the foundations for intensive youth meetings. With regard to Polish-German relations, the word "reconciliation" was used eight times in the treaty. Referring in a symbolic way to the content of the treaty, we invite you to participate in 8 jubilee events and to jointly reflect on how the treaty signed 30 years ago influenced our lives.

A series of online workshops "Krzyżowa invites to creativity". On why we focus on creativity

The project of art and environmental education online "Krzyżowa invites to creativity" arose from the need to maintain contact with young people and teachers in times of pandemonium, when we have been cut off from various forms of meeting in Krzyżowa and creating together.

The aim of the project is to present the International Youth Meeting Centre's approach to art education through videos, which can be watched at any time and which present, step by step, four different artistic methods that combine elements of upcycling and thus show how to create art in harmony with care for the environment.

Weaving and back to basics
Rag dolls
Dyes - where do colours come from and why is it important to know that?
Cotton jewelry

Stories that Move. Information about the project

In January 2021, the Krzyżowa Foundation in cooperation with six organisations from the Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine, Slovakia, Germany and Austria launched the Stories that Move project.

Stories that Move is an online platform with a set of interactive tools for education against discrimination, in the form of multilingual hybrid learning materials (www.storiesthatmove.org), which were launched in June 2018. Nine project partners from seven European countries were involved in the development and creation of the Stories that Move platform (2015-18) and continue to work on disseminating the tool in formal and non-formal education. Almost 4,000 teachers from across Europe have registered on the website to work with the online tool in their classrooms.

Please visit the TAB where you can find information about all the events related to the project.

"Understanding diversity together"

In April we met with representatives from Austria, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovenia, Greece together with Germany Studio Gaus GmbH on our jointly organized competence training the results of the joint project "Understanding diversity together" and try out the first methods. Although this all happend online and was full of fun and creativity.

Within the framework of the three-year project, in which the Kreisau Foundation is a partner, a handout for pedagogical professionals and multipliers is created, which makes it possible to talk about diversity in the pedagogical context in each country. We keep you posted!

“Local History on Instagram”

Let's bring the local story to Instagram. Let us try to consider how we remember historical events that took place in our area and how the culture of memory influences our view of the past. These were the main messages of the project "Local History on Instagram".

Why do we suggest you move your local story to Instagram? Because on the one hand, historical and civic education is increasingly dependent on the use of various types of media, and on the other hand, the Internet, especially during a pandemic, has become a kind of educational institution.

Online youth meeting - Olkusz-Gräfelfing

In April, the first online meeting of young people from schools in Olkusz and Gräfelfing, which have been meeting with their groups in Krzyżowa for many years, took place. This time, the meeting was different but no less informative. The content of the programme focused on the topic "Digital Ethics" and brought together 30 young people in a virtual space. During the four days of the project, the participants reflected on their own media behaviour and analysed the relationship between personal needs and the use of social media and other applications. They discussed and named anti-democratic tendencies on the Internet and learned about the concept of "counterspeech" in order to work constructively to make the Internet a place based on democratic values by standing up for democracy and human rights online, taking action against hate speech and spreading positive narratives.

The 18th Seminar of Memorials of Eastern and Western Europe in Krzyżowa - for the first time as an online event - turned out to be a success again

For the eighteenth time, the Krzyżowa Foundation invited to the Seminar of Memorials of Eastern and Western Europe. After the seminar in 2020, shortly before the scheduled date, had to be canceled due to a pandemic, the Krzyżowa Foundation together with other project partners decided to move the event to the virtual space in 2021.

Due to this change, it was decided to shorten the four-day event to two days. On 25 and 26 March employees of memorial sites, museums and research institutions from Eastern, South-Eastern and Western Europe were invited to discuss the topic “Virtual Memory. Memory Places and Digital Media ”.

Series of online lectures || Project “1990 / Year One. The democratic transformation in former Eastern Bloc countries”

The year 1990 was a turning point in overcoming the communist heritage and shaping democracy in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. That year brought the first fully free parliamentary, presidential and local government elections in most of the CEE countries. It was also in 1990 that the two German states were reunited, which had (still has) consequences not only for the Germans themselves, but also for their eastern neighbours, Poles, Czechs and Slovaks (then: Czechoslovakia), who had to re-establish their relations with their old/new neighbour - with whom they also had an unsettled history dating back to World War II. The year 1990 was also the beginning of a new era for the Baltic States, such as Lithuania, which was the first country of that region to declare its independence after 50 years of Soviet rule.

Please visit the TAB where you can find information about all the events related to the project.

"Laboratory of dialogue and reconciliation" | Start of the second edition of the project

We are pleased to announce that "Krzyżowa" Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe, in cooperation with Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Poland has started a second edition of a project "Laboratory of dialogue and reconciliation".

It is an international project which aims to create a space for presentation and exchange of experience and ideas among people actively working to support constructive dialogue based on mutual respect.

Please visit the TAB where you can find information about all the events related to the project.

The 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia through the eyes of Poles and Czechs

The Krzyżowa Foundation started cooperation with the Czech organisation Post Bellum in implementing the project "Together over the borders of totalitarian systems" (Společně mezi hranicemi totalitních systemu), which aims to present the reaction with which the armed suppression of the Prague Spring by Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968 met in Czechoslovakia and Poland.

In the framework of the project, relations of Czech witnesses of these events and Polish participants and organisers of protests and solidarity actions will be recorded. The recordings will be used to prepare a documentary film, presented in the Czech Republic and Poland in the autumn of 2021.

"Digital Mentoring - a new dimension of teaching"

On Tuesday, 11 May 2021, an on-line conference was held, which summarized the project "Digital Mentoring - a new dimension of teaching", it was also aimed at disseminating the solutions developed during the project. The conference was organized by the Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe and the partner institution from Ireland - H2 Learning.

The meeting was opened by Iwona Machoń-Pluszczewska, the project coordinator, presenting the sources of funding and the main assumptions of the project and its team: Tamara Chorąży and Jolanta Kolinko from the Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe and Maria Folk and Karolina Wójcik from H2 Learning.

INVITATIONS

Report from the ceremony on the anniversary of Ewa Unger's death

We invite you to watch the video retransmission of the ceremony celebrating the first anniversary of Ewa Unger's death.

March 2021 will marked the first anniversary of the death of Dr Ewa Unger, co-founder of the Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe and long-time chairwoman of its board, long-time president of the Club of Catholic Intelligentsia in Wrocław, a Wroclaw native who worked throughout her life for Polish-German understanding. The Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe, the Club of Catholic Intelligentsia in Wrocław and the Dortmund-Wrocław-Lviv Foundation of St. Hedwig were organising a commemoration of the life and work of Dr Ewa Unger on 13 March 2021.

Annemarie Franke „To nie wrogowie, to ludzie, Das sind keine Feinde, sondern Menschen. Ewa Unger (1926-2020)", 2021.

We are glad that we can present you a publication that is so important to us. A year after the death of Dr. Ewa Unger - co-founder of the Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe and the long-term chairman of the Foundation's Management Board, we are presenting you with an album that shows the life of a person who rendered great service to Polish-German reconciliation. The author of the publication is Dr. Annemarie Franke - for many years associated with the Krzyżowa Foundation, currently a member of the Foundation's Supervisory Board.

The book is available in our bookstore.

The books of the Krzyżowa Foundation in the offer of the Zajezdnia History Center online store

Due to the pandemic and limitations in the activities of our center, the possibility of purchasing publications offered by the Krzyżowa Foundation has also become troublesome. Thanks to our friend, the Zajezdnia History Center in Wrocław, the option to buy our books is much simpler.

For several days now, the offer of the Zajezdnia History Center online store also includes the publications of the Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe. For several days now, the offer of the Zajezdnia History Center online store These are items in Polish published by the Krzyżowa Foundation, but also other publications dealing with the history of Krzyżowa, foundations and Polish-German relations established there in the 1990s.

Fundacja „Krzyżowa” dla Porozumienia Europejskiego
Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe
Krzyżowa 7, 58-112 Grodziszcze, Poland
tel: +48 74 85 00 300, fax: +48 74 85 00 305

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