EUSTORY | The History Network for Young Europeans

KARTA Centre, Warsaw

The KARTA Center is an independent non-governmental organization (incorporated as a foundation), documenting and popularizing the recent history of Poland and Eastern Europe.
http://www.karta.org.pl

"[.] Historical experiences, though often divisive, can also be a strong link between individuals, groups and nations. Overcoming divisions, fostering reconciliation and cooperation among ourselves, implies understanding each others' histories in order to create a European perspective.Everyone needs to understand the processes which have shaped us. By confronting our different and conflicting pasts we can be enabled to build a shared future[.]."

Extracts from the Position Paper:
"Dealing with History in Europe:
Understanding Differences, Overcoming Divisions",
EUSTORY Summit, 6th -9th December 2007 in Warsaw

From 6th to 9th December 2007 the first international EUSTORY summit took place in Warsaw. It was organized by EUSTORY, the History Network for Young Europeans, in cooperation with the Polish Foundation Karta Centre, which hosted this international encounter. About 60 participants from 20 European countries assembled in Warsaw to discuss the summit's topic: "Dealing with History in Europe: Understanding Differences, Overcoming Divisions". EUSTORY alumni, all of them former winners of history competitions, together with organizers of these research competitions and activists of historical reconciliation initiatives discussed about ways of creating a trans-border dialogue and promoting a European understanding of history.

The summit's opening was enriched by a speech of Mr. Risto Raivio, representative of the Directorate General for Education and Culture at the European Commission. He underlined the importance of European networks and promised support for the future work of EUSTORY.

After the welcome, the participants got together in their respective working groups. The topics of the five working groups were:

• "History and Politics",
• "History and Young People",
• "History and School",
• "History and Intercultural Dialogue"
• and "History and Media".

In each group, the participants approached the summit's overall topic via the perspective of their subtopic.

To get an impulse for their work, the groups first of all visited five different museums and memorials in Warsaw:

1. The first group visited the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising, which commemorates the uprising of Polish inhabitants of Warsaw, starting on the 1st of August 1944, when they took up a 63-day struggle in attempting to liberate Warsaw from German occupation.
   
   
2. The second group went to the Warsaw Citadel, a fortress, which was built by order of tsar Nicholas I after the suppression of the November Uprising of Poles against the Russian authorities in 1830. The fortress served as a prison until the late 1930s. An exhibition at the fortress deals mainly with Polish deportees, which were repressed under Soviet occupation during World War II or imprisoned for political reasons.
   
   
3. The third museum, that was visited by the members of the group "History and School", was Pawiak, a former prison as well, which was built in 1829-35 by Russian authorities for arresting political opponents. During the Second World War the building was used by German forces: it was turned into a German Gestapo prison and then became a part of the Warsaw concentration camp.
   
   
4. The fourth working group went to the Institute of Jewish History, where an exhibition deals with life in the Warsaw Ghetto. It recounts the history of Warsaw Jews under the German Nazi occupation: from the early anti-Jewish regulations in 1939 to the 1943 Ghetto uprising until the final murder of the entire Jewish population in the Ghetto.
   
   
5. The fifth group visited the Katyn Museum. It commemorates the "Katyn Forest massacre" near Smolensk in spring 1940. The Katyn massacre was a mass execution of Polish citizens made prisoners of war in September 1939 after the capture of eastern Poland by Soviet forces. It was ordered by Soviet authorities in 1940. Nevertheless, for nearly 50 years Soviet propaganda held German forces responsible for the massacre.

The impression of these visits, their linkage to the topics of the working groups and the implications for the overall theme of the summit were discussed later on in the different working groups.

On Friday morning, the participants of the summit were invited to Róza Thun, representative of the European Commission in Poland. Having witnessed the downfall of the communist regime as member of the Polish opposition and the integration of Poland into the European Union, Mrs. Thun gave an insight to her turbulent life and how she experienced European cultural diversity even while she was living in a closed system like the Polish Peoples Republic. Apart from that she gave advices to the alumni of how to formulate a position paper, that would be recognized and discussed by European politicians. Last but not least, she promised to help with disseminating the paper among representatives of the EU.

After the visit, the different groups went back to work on their paragraphs. The exchange of experiences was at the core of this part of the summit. Activists of historical reconciliation initiatives presented examples of their work, while competition organizers and EUSTORY alumni brought in a variety of perspectives of how history influences the present in their countries. In the evening, the participants of the summit took part in a podium discussion of Polish intellectuals. The sociologist Prof. Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski, first head of the Polish Academy of Sciences/Institute of Political Studies, Prof. Aleksander Smolar, lecturer of Political Science and President of the Stefan Batory Foundation, and the historian Prof. Wojciech Roszkowski, Member of the European Parliament, discussed about "Memory in Politics. Poland in Europe". The discussion was moderated by Jan Skórzynski, historian and former editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper "Rzeczpospolita".

On Saturday, the five working groups formulated their paragraph for the final position paper. The results of the single groups were handed over to an editorial group, consisting of six alumni. They merged the ideas of the different working groups to one common position paper. This paper, including the alumni's demands and requests for how to deal with history in Europe in an integrating way, will be presented to and discussed with European Commissioner Ján Figel'on 22 January in Brussels.

During a farewell dinner at Warsaw's old town center on Saturday evening, the participants had the chance to exchange impressions from their international encounter and to celebrate their success in creating a common statement and giving Europe's youth a voice with their demand for including history in the European identity discourse.

On Sunday morning, a final press breakfast took place. Alumni representatives from Poland, Germany and Norway presented and explained the result of their international conference to interested journalists.