by Veronika Grueneisen
This year, we are looking back on 20 years of work confronting collective atrocities: The first Nazareth Conference “Germans and Israelis – The Past in the Present” took place in 1994. A Newsletter to commemorate the beginning, looking at past experience is to come out next.
The first conference encouraged those who were involved in it to carry on: Staff kept offering conferences and integrated insights and learning from past experience which resulted in including Others, later Palestinians and lately other Europeans. Members attended again, reflected and wrote about their experience and their learning and spread the news to next generations of members. All this resulted in the foundation of PCCA, in 2007, which has given those who had been actively involved in the work a containing organization for thought and reflection of the learning as well as development of new projects, responding to the changing environment and thereby taking forward the primary task of the organization.
As the financial crisis is still a major issue for many European countries, the pain of old wounds is recurring. Animosities are surfacing between former enemies as – following its unification in 1990 – Germany’s economic power and political influence have increased and made international partnership at eye level more difficult. Has the past been confronted enough for the present to be shaped in a more humane way, compared with the 20th century? How can European citizens confront present and past together and prevent repetition?
We encourage you to register for
“European Perpetrators and Victims – Now and Then
August 27th – Sept. 1st, 2014, in Kliczców, Poland”
https://new.shocohost.co.il/en/2014/
Meanwhile, we are about to take a fresh approach towards dealing with an old problem, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, developing a conference with a focus on an area of concern which all can share and learn about with Europeans and Americans – an approach which will hopefully offer new ground for further development.
Veronika Grueneisen
Chair Person, PCCA