History of the Foundation

RECONCILIATION MASS

In November 1989 chancellor Kohl visits Poland, meeting first for decades, democratically elected Polish government. The visit was to give rise to new relations between the two countries. However the breakdown of the Soviet Bloc and unification of Germany were still a matter of conjecture. Future neighbours - Prime Minister Mazowiecki and Chancellor Kohl – at the end of the talks, on 12^th November 1989 (three days after the fall of the Berlin Wall) take part in the Reconciliation Mass, said in the estates of the Moltke family in Krzyżowa.

The Wrocław Catholic Intelligentsia Club, a member of which is Mazowiecki, took an opportunity to present to the gathered the project of an “international meeting centre” in Krzyżowa. In the declaration of 16^th November 1989 chancellor Kohl informs Bundestag about verbal arrangements with polish Prime Minister that “former property of counts Moltke will be transformed into an international Polish and German youth meeting centre”.

During the 2^nd Conference in Krzyżowa “A Christian in society II”, held on 1-3 December 1989, which was a continuation of the June conference, almost a hundred and fifty participants take part. During the weekend citizens of GDR were able to travel to the West without limits. The agreement between the two Prime Ministers created a basis for further work on the project. First conceptional tasks were formed. The Wrocław Club was responsible for creation of “a foundation for the project of Krzyżowa/Kreisau”. An advisory board was chosen, and for the next months intensive talks were held, in which governments of Poland, FRG and new GDR took part. The government of GDR donates 180 000 East German marks (approx. DEM 20 000), and the southern province of Jesuits in Poland $11 500.

BERLIN DECLARATION

In May 1990 in Berlin the 3^rd Krzyżowa Conference is held and a “Berlin declaration” is formed. The declaration is about creating “Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe” and sets four aims:

• an international meeting centre
• a memorial site
• an ecological farm
• a community of Krzyżowa

The international character of the centre is to be based in the spirit, ideas and plans of the Kreisau Circle, especially of Helmuth James von Moltke. Polish-German agreement is bound to have a special significance for the new order of European commonwealth. In recognition of the importance and significance of the dialogue between generations, age restrictions are removed, making Krzyżowa a place not only for the young.

On the fringes of the Conference difficult and complicated negotiations between representatives of the federal government, Polish government and an international work group are held. The result of these is a charter of the Foundation. During the negotiations matters of law and finance were explained. It was the first time when difficulties in realising a partner project going beyond the Iron Curtain had come up. At the beginning the differences in terminology and the language of law had to be clarified. The Polish party was lacking experience regarding law of a foundation – at that time in Poland there were no such organisations and the law was unclear. On the other hand German ministries involved in the case created their own idea of the project which was not consistent with the expectations of the work group. Eventually a consolidated text of the charter was formed, hoping to be accepted by the two governments. The Conference ended in nominating Michał Czapliński the law agent of the Foundation.

As far back as 9^th July 1990 The Wrocław Catholic Intelligentsia Club brings to life the Foundation. The Club became an owner of the estate of Krzyżowa and the Hill House and handed it over to the newly established Foundation. On 22^nd September 1990 the first meeting of the board of the Foundation was held, during which Ewa Unger was nominated the chairman and Michał Czapliński, Wim Leenman, Krzysztof Łoskot, Ger van Roon, Stefana Steinlein and Jürgen Telschow were made members of the presidium. The Foundation could start working and the reconstruction of Krzyżowa could begin.

COMMON PROGRAMME

For this task an agreement between the governments of Poland and Germany was crucial. It was achieved by changing the Ministers of Foreign Affairs in the two governments between 27^th July and 20^th August 1990. On the basis of the consultations of 12^th November in Krzyżowa between chancellor Kohl and prime minister Mazowiecki, Common Declaration signed by the ministers on 14th November 1989, and negotiations of 23rd-24th July 199 in Bonn by representative of the two governments, the following guidelines were established:

• both governments support the establishment and activity of the International Youth Meeting Centre in Krzyżowa;
• the main purpose of the International Youth Meeting Centre is a meeting place for the young from Poland and Germany. Its nature is European and cross-generational;
• in this form youth meetings realise the aims and provisions of the Youth Exchange Treaty of 10^th November 1989;
• Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe is to create a youth meeting centre and convene an institution of legal personality to manage it (temporarily known as “International Meeting Centre in Krzyżowa Ltd”)
• a representative from each government is to be a part of the supervisory body of the corporate entity;
• to co-operate with the meeting centre, Federal Republic of Germany is to convene a separate person endowed with a right (meanwhile the Polish-German Youth Cooperation and Kreisau-Initiative e.V. was created), which will also be a part of the supervisory body;
• building the centre will be financed, in the first instance, by the Polish zloty fund, which was created to pay back the loan taken in 1975 (managed by the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation);
• current maintenance and running costs of the meeting centre will be financed by its earnings.

The agreement was at the bottom of reconstruction of Krzyżowa and creation of the International Youth Meeting Centre. Krzyżowa would never look like today without the help of the both governments, guaranteed by a contract agreement, or considerable investments.

BUILDING WORKS

When in the summer of 1990 the Foundation took over the estate some of the buildings, despite their poor condition, were still being used. There were cows in the shed, in the barn there was a drying room and a granary. Several families lived in the other buildings. Regarding this fact, the take-over contract included a point saying that, before the start of the building works, the Foundation needs to enable the dwellers to move to a substitute accommodation.

From the funds of the German Embassy in Warsaw, a plot with a building was bought and after some modernisation eight flats were created. Afterwards, in Makowice, the main offices of agricultural conglomerate were built - a home for another six families. In the same town three grain silos and a new cowshed were erected.

The next task was to create a technical infrastructure. Until 1992 there was no water pipe in Krzyżowa. Because the well on the premises was not efficient enough and the quality of water was unsatisfactory, a 7-kilometre water pipe had to be built. It was constructed in the way to connect not only the meeting centre but also Krzyżowa and some adjacent villages. It was a significant achievement for the region.

Sewage and wastewater system were still missing. That is why the Foundation built its own sewage farm which later served the whole village, and its efficiency allowed two adjacent villages to get connected to it.

Telephone communications was causing a lot of trouble. In those days, both construction workers and staff preparing meetings in the emerging Centre used only one telephone line.

In January 1998 Krzyżowa lived to see the day of installation of enough telephone lines.

These actions created conditions to start proper works connected with building the Meeting Centre. The Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation was financing the tasks. All the above are initial costs which cannot be left out when calculating the whole investment.  Conversation of old buildings made the works and whole investment costs planning difficult. Due to the poor condition of majority of buildings, the easiest would be to demolish them and build new ones. However Krzyżowa turned out to have been the only entirely preserved German estate of this size in the Lower Silesia. Keeping the historical aspect was incredibly important. Creating a Memorial Site and a Meeting Centre according to the guidelines of the heritage conservationist became an additional factor to influence the costs.

The Foundation became an owner of the buildings of former Krzyżowa estate including the Hill House and its surroundings, approx. 5 hectares. The Foundation had the perpetual usufruct right of the cemetery hill and a right to lease 15 ha of the grassland around the estate for 8 years and 13 ha of cropland with pre-emption right. The buildings were to be, first of all, a meeting place for the youth, and the Cemetery Hill and the Hill House were to be a part of Memorial Site. The grassland was to be a recreation area for the visitors to Krzyżowa and not to built on. In the favourable conditions the cropland was planned to be an ecological farm.

INTENDED USE

The purpose of the buildings, which determined renovation works, was to hold a hundred and twenty participants of both meetings and recreation events. The Hill House with its hall of memory was to preserve the history of Kreisau Circle and enable studying in peace and quiet. Flats for the building caretaker and guests were also there.

The board of the foundation passed the responsibility for the building works to the Building Commission represented by Walter Lorang, Jürgen Telschow and its temporary members Prof. Ph.D. Kazimierz Czapliński, Michał Czapliński, Wim Leenman and Krzysztof Łoskot.

Its advisors were Gerhard Müller-Menckens and his co-researcher Günter Mulitze from Bremen. Their help was possible thanks to financial support of Federation of German Building Industry. Ewa Unger was a tireless interpretor. The Commission developed necessary conceptions, checked and corrected architects’ plans, and to a limited extent controlled building works – as much as it was possible for the Commission members spread around Europe.

THE COST OF HISTORY

People responsible for the realisation of the project agreed since the very beginning that the work of international understanding has to be run in the spirit of partnership, co-operation of both parties, despite the fact that some issues were easier to be dealt with only by the Germans or the Poles. Some works, as much as it was possible, were passed to Polish construction companies to promote local economic development.

The creator of the Foundation tried to act together and – consequently- they could on a small scale experience both good and bad aspects, which nowadays can be observed on a big, European scale. Maybe some issues were done more slowly and with more difficulties than needed, the aim has been achieved. Today of little importance are language barriers, professional experience of involved people, lack of professional knowledge of Polish partners, basing on their social and economical experience gained in the old system, which were difficult to understand by German party. Of little importance are also technical possibilities or a very narrow choice of building materials, different opinions about historical building and ecological issues, different understanding of economy, quality and so on and so forth. It sometimes negatively affected interpersonal relations. The fact that the present image was eventually achieved is thanks to a remarkable success of partner international co-operation.

Some present visitors to Krzyżowa will not even notice some deficiencies, others will complain about some alleged mistakes in the historic material renovation or structural faults.

Criticising the following, one needs to bear in mind that here, in the initial phase of uniting Europe, two different cultures met and any problems had to be solved only as a result of a compromise.

Total costs were almost 29 million Deutchmarks. Despite the long building time, the rising costs could be explained by the inflation or changing prices in the building industry. The Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation provided funds for the whole project, apart from  the Guest House.

THE INTERNATIONAL YOUTH MEETING CENTRE

At the beginning there were tents

On the 21^st July 1990, twelve days after the Krzyżowa Foundation was established, an international work camp began. 32 people from Poland, Germany, the Netherlands and Romania took part. It lasted three weeks and was led by Wim Leeman, Lien Leeman and Joanna Wieczorek. Three similar camps were held in consecutive years. The participants stayed in tents outside the Hill House, in poor hygiene. Interest in this type of spending holidays decreased after 1996, when fully functioning International Youth Meeting Centre could offer regular accommodation.

First work camps in Krzyżowa were modelled on camps held in Lwówek Śląski in late twenties, in which Helmuth James von Moltke had his part. Alike half a century earlier, young people of different age met at such work camps. As the name indicates, the crucial part of the project was hands-on work for the Foundation and Krzyżowa borough. The young were doing cleaning works, helping at the construction site, cleaning the cemetery, looking after children in the kindergarten, and helping during harvest. Apart from that the participants were learning about the history of Krzyżowa, Kreisau Circle, socio-economic situation of the region, political and religious issues. The camps could happen thanks to the initiative of individual persons involved in the Krzyżowa project before the establishment of the Foundation.

Thanks to the pedagogists working for IYMC, three from Poland and one from Germany, after opening up the Meeting Centre in July 1994, a lot of people took part in various programmes in Krzyżowa. In 1994, despite the ongoing construction works and not enough telephone lines, 6000 overnight stays were recorded. The number rose to 10 000 between 1996-1997, and in 1997 nearly 11 000. It was thanks to a considerate help of Kreisau-Initiative in Berlin, which financed the meetings and covered part of personnel costs.

Two stages were financed by Förderverein.

JUNE 1998

On the 11^th June 1998 Krzyżowa/Kreisau village experienced its second, since 1989, visit of extraordinary guests, representatives of the media and prominent politicians from Poland and Germany. 

In 1989 prime minister Mazowiecki and chancellor Kohl met at, in those days, dilapidated farm in order to take part in the Reconciliation Mass. Meanwhile in 1998 Prime minister Buzek and chancellor Kohl were guests in a newly renovated meeting centre.

After the Reconciliation Mass, the governments of Poland and Germany agreed to support the project of creating an international education and meeting centre in Krzyżowa – the idea which was born thanks to an international social initiative, whose idea was greater than only Polish-German exchanges. In the scope of interest of the two governments was to create the  need to open International Youth Meeting Centre in Krzyżowa (IYMC) which as far back as in 1994 could use one of the buildings called “the Stable”, where first exchanges were held and was a home to first work camp participants as well as Polish and German historians and senior military officers from both countries.

Whereas for the other involved in the Initiative for Krzyżowa, the most important aspect was that after a four-year renovation, a time of so called “meetings at a construction site” came to an end, and it was possible to move to “the Stable”, “the Granary”, “the Palace” and of course eat in “the Cowshed”. The last building to have been renovated and equipped was “the Hill House”. In the summer of 1998 the Cemetery Hill was made available to the villagers and visitors to Krzyżowa. A library was opened and in “the Palace” the first permanent exhibition was held entitled “Rejecting a lie”.

An important aspect of the opening ceremony was connecting the old and the new Krzyżowa. The celebrations started at “the Hill House”.  Ewa Unger, Rosemarie Reichwein, Clarita von Trott zu Solz and Freya von Moltke welcomed the guest with bread and salt. Afterwards, as in 1989, bishop Nossol conducted a mass - this time ecumenical – which took place on the farmyard between the buildings. Another step was tying two ribbons by Helmut Kohl and Jerzy Buzek. At the end the participants of graphic workshop from Belarus, Poland, Ukraine and Latvia created themselves ex libris for the two honoured guests.

In this way on the 11^th June land which were significant for future intergenerational projects, were put into service. They were also crucial for educational work and without them it would be impossible to have, in this small village in the Lower Silesia, nearly 30 thousand guests from all around the world!

THE FOUNDATION TODAY

Today Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe is a public benefit organisation – and a non-profit organisation. All its earnings are used to finance substantive work or for its maintenance. The Supervisory Board and the Board of the Foundation do voluntary work.

The activity of Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe was divided into three areas:

• International Youth Meeting Centre
• Memorial Site
• European Academy.

In 2007 Krzyżowa International Conference Centre Ltd. Started its business and its owner is Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe. The aim of the co-partnership is separating the Foundation as a public benefit organisation from the Conference Centre.

The earnings of the Krzyżowa International Conference Centre contribute capital to the activity of the Foundation.