From January 23 to 27, 28 students from Henriette Breymann Comprehensive School and Zespół Szkół Techniczno-Ekonomicznych met for the first time for an exchange in Kreisau. First on the agenda were integration games, language animation and getting to know the history and place of Krzyżowa. In workshops, the participants dealt with the topic "Identity - European Identity" and, as an "activist group", chose social topics that were particularly relevant to them and worked on them in small international groups.
Read more: Polish-German youth exchange, Skawina-Wolfenbüttel
For the Ukrainian School in Warsaw, Krzyżowa was supposed to be the site of a "Green School," but the December snow turned the project into a "White School."
For a week, teachers of the Ukrainian school held regular classes with their students in Krzyżowa, supplemented by tours of the region and art workshops. Carpentry, painting and acrobatics workshops were offered to rock the youngsters' creative talents.
Read more: "White School" in Krzyżowa! 12.2022
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This text is a written version of the opening lecture of the event 'Responsibility, Community, Europe. The legacy of the Kreisau Circle today". It took place on 2 September 2022 in Haus am Dom in Frankfurt am Main in cooperation with the Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe, the German Institute for Polish Affairs, Haus am Dom and the Freya von Moltke Foundation.
The lecture was given in german.
"The geopolitical holidays are over," the Polish diplomat Marek Prawda recently pointed out. The era of relative prosperity and security that has accompanied us in recent decades is coming to an end. New times are coming with great challenges. The legacy of the Kreisau Circle can help us to successfully stand up to them.
DSc Robert Żurek
PART I
What distinguished the Kreisau Circle
At Whitsun 1942, a strange group of people came together in Krzyżowa in Lower Silesia. People who could hardly have been more different in terms of their professions, their social status, their world views or their political sympathies. And it was no accident, it was deliberate, that was the Kreisau Circle.
This meeting was followed by two more - in autumn 1942 and then at Whitsun 1943. Ten to eleven people took part in each of these three meetings. These were not all members of the Kreisau Circle, but so many were allowed to meet under the conditions of conspiracy without being immediately discovered by the political police.
Read more: Lessons of the Kreisau Circle
On 12 December 2022, a meeting of more than 100 participants of the 'Dialogue of Generations' project from the districts of Świdnica, Dzierżoniów and Wałbrzych took place in Krzyżowa. There were three reasons for this meeting: The end of the project, the approaching start of the astronomical winter and the fact that any reason is good to have fun together.
The project started six months ago, on 23 June, with an opening conference. In the following months, the senior citizens took part in activities, trips to concerts and the theatre, as well as various workshops, which are too numerous to count.
Read more: Final meeting of the 'Dialogue of Generations', 12.12.2022
