From the lessons learned in the past we build our future. In the town of Bergen where common graves of a concentration camp lie, now young people from different European countries meet yearly. During the Anne Frank Days of Peace they develop visions of peaceful co-existence. The motto in 2005 was "Getting to know and shape Europe." That project also was the beginning of a fruitful co-operation between the Educational Institution of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation Hanover as co-organizer and the artist Herbert W. H. Hundrich as concept and artistic director of the Anne Frank Days of Peace 2005.
This co-operation has been impressively developed with the project called "Boundless Peace: Recognizing Hostility - Shaping Friendship." Israeli, Palestinian, and German teenagers from the ages of sixteen to nineteen met in the Ludwig-Windthorst-House between the 11th and 23rd of August in order to meet and de-construct political, religious, and historical prejudices towards "the other."
During fourteen days under one roof, the teenagers together built and shaped in an artistic manner a communal house. A statement of Adar, a Jewish Israeli, impressed me greatly: "In our daily lives we barely have the possibility of meeting Palestinians and Arab Israeli - although they live only ten minutes away. We have to go all the way to Germany in order to get to know them better."
True friendship is a slowly growing plant, which must constantly be watered and cultivated. I wish "Boundless Peace: Recognizing Hostility - Shaping Friendship" the success in the future which it has achieved this year.
The federal state Lower Saxony will remain a place of encounter and dialogue for interested teenagers from Israel, Palestine, and Germany. Special thanks go to Christian Schleicher, the Director of the Educational Institution of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation in Hanover, and the artist Herbert W. H. Hundrich and Harvey Wösten for their engagement and support.
Once the philosopher and man of state Francis Bacon said:
"When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him, but maintain a correspondence by letters with those of his acquain-tance which are of most worth. And let his travel appear rather in his discourse than his apparel or gesture; and in his discourse, let him be rather advised in his answers than forward to tell stories; and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners for those of foreign parts, but only plant some flowers of what he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country."
My wish for all the teenagers is that the seeds of friendship and international understanding planted in Lingen may bloom in Palestine and Israel. The friendship between the teenagers today is the bridge over which the teenagers of both countries will walk in the future.
Christian Wulff
Prime Minister of Lower Saxony
in September 2006