In 2017 and 2018, a number of activities were undertaken by the Memory, Education, Culture Foundation acting as a project partner in cooperation with the association Meetingpoint Music Messiaen e.V. under the project “Small cross-border homelands”, whose applicant and beneficiary was the Municipality of Zgorzelec. In February 2017, an application was submitted, which resulted in the signing of an agreement on 30 March 2017 for co-financing the project by the EU programme of the Small Project Fund INTERREG Poland-Saxony. The project was launched on 3 April 2017 and was scheduled for completion on 31 November of the same year, yet in June 2017 its duration was extended to 31 March 2018.
The aim of the project was to disseminate the cross-border educational offer and extend it with elements of regional education.
The main target group of the project were students of Braci Śniadeckich High School and Primary School No. 5 in Zgorzelec and the Oberschule Innenstadt in Görlitz.
The students met at historical workshops concernig the former prisoner-of-war camp Stalag VIIIA, held at the European Centre Memory, Education, Culture. The students also had the opportunity to meet witnesses of the past – people whose family history is connected with the tragic events of the Warsaw Uprising. There were also two history walks organised in Zgorzelec, where students learned about the places where the first Polish official bodies were located after the war.
The key characters to the project are two former inhabitants of Görlitz-Zgorzelec who played a significant role in the post-war history of this divided city: Father Franz Scholz, a German, and a Pole, doctor Jan Gliński. The young particpants’ insight into these two figures showed the complexity of post-war relations after the division of Görlitz. The project also included two publications (in Polish and German): “Dwie biografie. Jan B. Gliński i Franz Scholz”, and “Zwei Leben. Jan B. Gliński and Franz Scholz”, discussing their lifes in greater detail. A bilingual plaque dedicated to Franz Scholz was also unveiled on the wall of the house where he lived, at 7 Czachowskiego Street in Zgorzelec. The event involved a ceremony attended by representatives of local governments, education and culture institutions from Zgorzelec and Görlitz, as well as Polish and German clergy and the family of Father Franz Scholz.
The project received funding from the European Regional Development Fund and from the state budget under the Small Project Fund Interreg Poland – Saxony 2014-2022. The total expenditure amounted to EUR 23,517.60.