December 2022 – LRE Foundation

Jurriaan de Mol appointed Honorary Chairman of the LRE Foundation Board

Posted on December 22, 2022December 22, 2022 by Cecilia Badano

The LRE Foundation is beyond happy and proud to announce the recent appointment of our former Deputy Director, Jurriaan de Mol, as Honorary Chairman of the LRE Foundation Advisory Board.

From Liberation Route Europe initiator in 2007 to Chairman, driving force, Project Manager, and Deputy Director – Jurriaan de Mol  has been involved in the creation and work of the LRE Foundation from the very beginning. In a short interview, Jurriaan tells the story of this 15-year-long adventure alongside the LRE Foundation:

“After all those years, 15 years, I am still very excited and moved by the fact that the team of Liberation Route Europe is still working today on enlarging the trail from Southern England to Berlin but also the trails in southern Europe and more. This is a big achievement. […] People love to walk, and people are very interested in the stories that happened nearly 80 years ago – so yes, it is fantastic how we started and how far we got today.” says Jurriaan de Mol.

Watch the interview and let Jurriaan’s enthusiasm guide you through the story about how the idea of connecting museums, cemeteries and remembrance sites came together and how he and many project partners laid the base for the international remembrance trail – Liberation Route Europe – and the LRE Foundation.

A two-day workshop in the Shoah Memorial in Milan marks an important step for the “Persecution Through Their Eyes” project

Posted on December 20, 2022June 14, 2023 by Cecilia Badano

On December 15 and 16, the Shoah Memorial in Milan hosted a two-day workshop as part of the “Persecution Through Their Eyes”, a project funded by the European Union. The gathering was intended to share and discuss different educational approaches to persecution during WWII, as well as brainstorm ideas for the upcoming exhibition and youth events.

The Milan workshop is one of the several activities that structured “Persecution Through Their Eyes”, an EU-funded LRE Youth Programme which involves a number of international partners: Camp Vught National Memorial (Netherlands), Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation (Germany), the National Peace Park of Sant’Anna di Stazzema (Italy), and “Grodzka Gate ‐ NN Theatre” Centre in Lublin (Poland).

After the welcoming remarks by Rémi Praud, Managing Director of LRE Foundation, and Mirco Carrettieri, Moderator and President of LRE Italy’s Scientific Committee the workshop’s first section featured experts’ speeches and presentations concerning various educational approaches and methods to the topic of persecution during WWII. The inclusion of speakers from different backgrounds gave this panel considerable value: Taja Vovk van Gaal (LRE Foundation’s Supervisory Board member and founding director of the House of European History), Talia Bidussa (Program Manager at the Shoah Memorial of Milan), Marta Baiardi (researcher at the Istituto Storico della Resistenza in Tuscany), Greta Bianchi (project assistant Children and Education at Fondazione Feltrinelli), Emanuele Edallo (researcher at the University of Milan), Elena Monicelli (coordinator at Scuola di Pace di Monte Sole), Chiara Nencioni (Università di Pisa – Istituto storico della Resistenza di Lucca ), Paolo Pezzino (President of Istituto Nazionale Ferruccio Parri), and Francesca Poli (Deina’s vice-president) focused on their institutions’ approaches, and their personal research in front of an audience made up of historians, museologists, university and high school professors.

Subsequently, the second part of the seminar brought together the “Persecution Through Theis Eyes” project’s partners to discuss the structure and the details of the upcoming exhibition, which will be one of the project’s core initiatives, taking place both virtually and physically in each of the four partner institutions and telling a wide range of personal stories related to persecution during WWII.

Eventually, the two-day workshop came to an intense and meaningful end with a guided tour provided by the Shoah Memorial in Milan to all workshop participants.

December 9 marked the conclusion of the first circle of the Liberations Route Europe Trails in Italy outreach events

Posted on December 14, 2022December 20, 2022 by Cecilia Badano

From October to December, three outreach events in three different Italian regions were organised by LRE Italy to raise awareness about the Liberations Route Europe Trails.

The first took place on October 27 in Florence, Tuscany, in collaboration with the Tuscany Region, the Assessor’s Office of Memory Culture and International Relations, and the Assessor’s Office of Economy, Productive Activities, Credit Policies and Tourism. On November 15, the Shoa Museum Foundation in Rome, Lazio, hosted the second event, while the third and final one was held on December 9 in Bologna under the patronage of the Emilia-Romagna Region.

All three initiatives were devoted to introducing LRE Italy and its work in the country. The meetings’ main focus was Liberation Route Europe Trails in Italy, a project funded by the Federal Republic of Germany’s Italian – German Fund for the Future and inspired by Liberation Route Europe that aims to create a network of thematic routes related to WWII throughout Italy.

The locations of the events in three different Italian regions were a significant added value to the project. Indeed, the events provide an opportunity to initiate a dialogue or, in some cases, strengthen an existing relationship with the various organizations that share an interest in the field, with the aim of expanding the Liberation Route Europe Trails in Italy to different parts of the peninsula.

The LRE Foundation team and national branches come together for a three-day seminar

Posted on December 5, 2022December 5, 2022 by Cecilia Badano

After months of online meetings due to the pandemic, the LRE Foundation and the National Branches’ teams met in person for three days of seminars, discussions and idea exchange.

The meeting provided an opportunity for the LRE Foundation’s and the National Branches’ teams to share their experiences and best practices. The updates and potential growth of the numerous initiatives carried out in the various countries constituted one of the main topics of the seminars. Indeed, each National Branch had the time to illustrate the goals they are striving to achieve in the coming years as well as the targets they have already met.

A significant portion of the programme was devoted to the three primary projects of the Foundation – Liberation Route Europe, Europe Remembers and the Youth Programs. The various national approaches were discussed, broadening the teams’ perspectives and expertise in the process. The conversation touched on essential topics such as new partnerships, initiatives, and promotional channels. Through brainstorming exercises and horizontal discussions, each participant had the opportunity to speak, bringing a range of expertise, experience, ages and perspectives to the discussion and enhancing the debate’s outcomes with fresh and engaging points of view.

To complete the team building seminar, a tour of the Liberation Route Europe was organised, which included a guided tour of the German War Cemetery in Ysselstein, a visit to the network member the Overloon War Museum, and a visit to the Vector of Memory which commemorates the Battle of Overloon.