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The Krzyzowa Foundation is a non-profit organisation under Polish law, with internationally equipped bodies and a multilingual and international team of colleagues.
The Foundation implements its statutory tasks in three departments, all of which are positioned accordingly to their specific aims and purposes:
- International Youth Meeting Centre
- Memorial Site
- European Academy
In order to finance these departments the Foundation runs a conference centre with hotel and gastronomy.
In 2007 the Krzyzowa Foundation founded a limited company, “International Conference Centre Kreisau”, in order to structurally separate the commercial doings of the conference centre from the other departments of the Foundation.
The limited company is owned to one hundred percent by the Krzyzowa Foundation. The management board of the conference centre is held by the same people as the Foundation Board. In the corporate meetings members of the Supervisory Board are present as well.
Broadening your horizon, leaving prejudices behind, listening and leaning from others, opening your mind- it is with a diverse offer of projects that we create the framework for young people to come to together and connect. Dealing with the history and place of Krzyzowa is central to this.
Bearing this in mind and in accordance with our pedagogic principles the International Youth Meeting Centre realises its projects with and for youth since the early 1990s. From the beginnings the work of the Youth Meeting Centre has been, and remains, the most important department of the Krzyzowa Foundation. Our German-Polish team organises and facilitates around 100 projects a year, thus bringing several thousand participants from Germany, Poland, and other European countries to Krzyzowa. Our staff members are supported by volunteers from Germany and the Ukraine, and interns.
The quality of our youth work derives mainly from our focus on interactive and creative methods during the projects and from our taking the various interests and composition of the visiting groups into account.
The International Youth Meeting Centre closely co-operates with the German-Polish Youth Office (DPJW/PNWM). By this German-polish youth exchanges, as well as those including a third country, can be financially supported. The Memorial Site of the Krzyzowa Foundation remembers resistance and opposition movements against the dictatorships of the 20th century. We commemorate individuals and groups from all over Europe who defended the justice, liberty and dignity of man in the face of personal danger. The Memorial Site is in the first place a workshop where an exploratory and creative approach to history can be discovered and discussed. Its less a museum but a place of remembrance and exchange, of joint reflection on the past and future. The Site offers a library, a media library and a permanent exhibition on resistance against the European dictatorships in the 20th century. Added to this, the Memorial Site closely co-operates with similar institutions in Poland and abroad, organises conventions (together with the European Academy), and issues publications.
The Memorial Site centres around the House on the Hill, the home of the von Moltke family from 1928 to 1945, situated above the estate. Here the 'Kreisauer Kreis' came together for three lager meetings in 1942/43 and after 1990 it was restored as a family home and working place.
Besides the public rooms on the first floor with media library and the memorial room for the members of the Kreisauer Kreis, the house contains the office of the Memorial Site, a family flat and three rooms for fellows. The starting point for the foundation of the European Academy was the conviction that the totalitarian regimes during the 20th century in Europe have substantially divided East and West. Nowadays Europe is facing a multitude of challenges when it comes to opening the different realities and experiences of East and West for each other. Committed to the legacy of the Kreisauer Kreis, the European Academy participates in the re-shapeing of Europe with its educational work.
Our aims:
- Active participation in the pan-European unification process
- Organisation of fora enabling the exchange of social, cultural, political and religious world-views
- Enhancing personal responsibility and moral courage
- Formation of a regional identity
- Advocacy of the constitutional state
- Increasing the competence of dealing with changing economical and social circumstances
We seek to fulfil this through:
- Organising international conferences:
- On European social, political and cultural questions,
- On aspects of German-Polish co-operation,
- On the dialogue of Eastern and Western Europe
- Mediation of the legacy of the Kreisauer Kreis and its European concepts
- Seminars and study trips
- Promotion of regional networking in the fields of economy, science, culture and politics
- Trainings for various social and occupational groups
The cities Wroclaw and Lviv (Breslau and Lemberg) in 2001 agreed on a closer co-operation between them. Subsequently the programme 'Breslau-Lemberg' was initiated and since 2002 co-ordinated by the Krzyzowa Foundation. The programme was financially supported by the city of Wroclaw and ended in 2009. Up-coming projects with partners from Lviv and the Ukraine can be found in our programme section. Aims:
- Establishing and continuing existing partnerships between NGOs, schools, institutions and public authorities in Wroclaw and L'viv
- Supporting the transformational process in the Ukraine by passing on Polish experiences; Circulating help from the West after 1989
- Encouraging personal contacts between citizens of both cities
- Developing mutually beneficial atmosphere for the co-operation of local adminstrations, youth organisations, schools, citizens' initiatives and culture
- Supporting the establishment of democracy and the integration of the Urkaine into the European community of states
- Promotion of good neighbourly relations and co-operation between Poland and the Ukraine
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