On one of the weekends in January 2020, about 70 employees and volunteers of the Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe, from three decades, celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Foundation in Krzyżowa. Everyone was asked to send their souvenir photos from the time they worked in Krzyżowa. The meeting organizers wanted to prepare a presentation of these photographs for a festive evening. In numerous photos from the 90s you could see Ewa Unger among colleagues. It was understandable, at that time she was the chairman of the foundation's board and at the same time she worked socially in the Foundation's office in Wrocław and regularly participated in working session, meetings and public events in Krzyżowa. Participants of the jubilee meeting gave Ewa Unger written wishes and greetings, which reached her in the form of a several-page letter. The recipient read these words in full awareness, several times, with joy, although she did not know all the authors personally. Today we know that this letter was a symbolic farewell and thanks - thanks for 30 years of existence of the institution that would not have been possible without Ewa Unger, one of the great, important and distinguished women in the history of Krzyżowa.
[FOTO: Marek Aureliusz Pędziwol]
Read more: Farewell to Dr. Ewa Unger (20.10.1926 – 15.03.2020) | Annemarie Franke
Recently, I looked into the report from the February’s Foundation Board meeting. We planned in detail a very promising year there - with a record number of projects and visitors. We even complained a bit that a very busy period is appearing on the horizon while we were hoping to slow down after the jubilee year.
Now, just a few weeks later, this report is read like a document from a distant, alien world. Instead of planning how to use resources most efficiently so that our team is not overloaded with managing a large number of projects, we are thinking about how to save the Foundation from imminent collapse.
Between March and June, 69 multi-day projects were to take place in Krzyżowa, in which nearly 3,000 people were to participate. Mostly they were Polish-German school exchanges. All these meetings had to be canceled in consequence of a coronovirus pandemic.
Read more: Between yesterday and tomorrow - a crisis that can become an opportunity | Robert Żurek
The current crisis will affect most areas of our lives. It will also affect German-Polish relations. It may turn out to be a big challenge for them, but, like any change, it may also have a creative element in some areas. This is not the time for crystal-ball gazing, what, when and how exactly something will happen in the Polish-German relations. There are more questions than answers. But in order to be able to look for solutions to the problems that will arise in the future - the one that is closer and a little bit farther away - it is possible to name them today, even if only by calling their respective areas.
A force in the Community or an escape into nationalism?
Read more: Pandemic and German-Polish relations | Agnieszka Łada
The epidemic of the coronavirus has stopped the world from functioning as it has been known for generations. It puts to the test not only financial liquidity, family relationships, the psyche of the individual, but also a classic school model, with which we were forced to say goodbye at the beginning of March.
Teachers had to face the challenge of distance learning, use platforms and tools that have not been tested so far, familiarize themselves with and co-create a new space for education, with methods of management, control and feedback, which have not been tested yet.
The creation of this new distance learning structure is currently facing a large wave of criticism within the educational environment as well as from parents. Closing the schools overnight prevented the teaching council from developing joint and coherent methods of action during the crisis, setting priorities, or finding optimal solutions. There was no time to analyze even hypothetical educational activities conducted remotely, and there was not enough space to set specific educational goals.
Read more: Pandemic and the situation of education in Poland. The future of international youth exchanges|...
