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On Saturday, 21 August 2021, a Netherlands-German-Polish cycling expedition set off from Oświęcim in Poland to Westerbork in the Netherlands on a route of 1320 km. Sixty young people from Poland, Germany and the Netherlands - mostly students - took part in the unusual journey to celebrate 75 (+1) years of peace and freedom in Europe. One of the stops of the rally was Krzyżowa - a place of reconciliation.

"Terug naar Westerbork" ("Back to Westerbork") is a Netherlands initiative to commemorate the 2020 commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. The rally was originally planned for last year, but due to the coronavirus pandemic it took place in 2021. 

Read more: Participants of the cycling rally "Back to Westerbork" in Krzyżowa - 23.08.2021

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 ”.

Read more: The 18th Seminar of Memorials of Eastern and Western Europe in Krzyżowa - for the first time as an...

18th East-West-European Memorial Seminar Kreisau
25./26. March 2021

 The virtual remembrance
Memorial work and digital media

Remembering and teaching history online - what is possible virtually and what is not? Museums, memorial sites and contemporary witness projects in Eastern and Western Europe have long presented themselves online - but the pandemic is forcing many to move their multifaceted offerings completely online: Exhibitions, events, documentation and publications, workshops and discussion formats. What does this mean for historical and political remembrance work? How do methods, exchange and knowledge change when real encounters are not possible? What opportunities are offered by online communication, which target groups are opened up in a new way - and who cannot or does not want to participate in virtual formats?

Read more: 18th East-West-European Memorial Seminar Kreisau - online, 25.-26.03.2021

This year's "Ways of Freedom" took place on 18 July in an unusual, although typical of the current pandemic situation, online format. The project was implemented with the support of the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation by the International Youth Meeting Centre in Oświęcim and the Krzyżowa Foundation. About 25 people from Poland and Germany took part in the several-hour-long online meeting - participants of previous editions of the project, but also other teachers, volunteers, people working for Polish-German organisations.

Read more: German-Polish seminar "Ways of Freedom" - 18.07.2020 - report