"Youth for Peace": Opening Event of EUSTORY Summit 2018
This year's EUSTORY Next Generation Summit of the Körber Foundation and the European Youth Meeting "Youth for Peace - 100 Years After World War I, 100 Ideas for Peace" of the Franco-German Youth Office (FGYO) and its partners will be opened with a joint kick-off event on 14 November in Berlin, Germany. More than 500 young people and numerous invited guests will address the question of whether a common European culture of remembrance is possible or desirable 100 years after the end of the First World War and how peace can be preserved in Europe. The event is held under the auspices of the Federal Foreign Office and the French Mission du Centenaire.
German State Secretary Andreas Michaelis will open the evening on behalf of German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. The French Ambassador to Germany, Anne-Marie Descôtes, as well as top representatives of the host consortium of FGYO, Körber Foundation, Mission du Centenaire and Volksbund Deutscher Kriegsgräberfürsorge will also welcome the participants.
The event will begin with a video installation which illustrates how the themes of World War I and war and peace in the 20th century affect young people from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East today.
The British author and journalist Afua Hirsch will sketch the extent to which her own family history influences the reality of life in the 21st century in her keynote lecture. Born to a father with Jewish German heritage and a Ghanaian mother, she has explored intensively the issues of history, identity and belonging. After her talk she will open a panel discussion on the European culture of remembrance.
What contribution can the diverse experiences and references to the history of the years around 1918 make to a cross-border understanding? What forms of shared memory are possible? Afua Hirsch will discuss this with the former French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, the German historian Sönke Neitzel from the University of Potsdam, the Bosnian theatre director Jasmila Žbanić as well as with two young Europeans: the winner of the EUSTORY competition from Latvia, Anete Kalnina, and the young German peace ambassador of the Institut Français d'Allemagne, Julius Niewisch.
The Opening Evening in the Bolle Festsäle will kick off the EUSTORY Next Generation Summit "Making Peace with History", organised by the Körber Foundation. 120 winners of national history competitions (members of the EUSTORY network) will come together for six days and, in a variety of workshops and working formats, will explore aspects of war and peace in Europe.
The youth exchange is intended to encourage young Europeans to develop an understanding for the polyphony of Europe’s history by looking at the history of violence of the 20th century and to jointly develop possibilities for shaping the present. The participants of the EUSTORY Summit will present their results at a closing event on 18 November at the Alte Börse Marzahn.