The Phoenix - Freedom and Liberations

62 years past the end of the Second World War, which represents today a tragic common memory for European countries, we try supporting the democratic values in which these same countries have decided to believe in order not to let such terrible events repeat. Survivors of those tragic events must be a warning for future generations not to make the same mistakes, but there are very few of those precious witnesses left. Therefore it is a duty of Governments and societies to pass on these values to the youth which made possible to build the European Union. We are strongly convinced that reflecting upon our common history has to be the basis upon which young European people can keep on building peace, freedom and justice in Europe. Therefore our aim is to build a permanent common path, in order to bring forward the values of “Remembrance” and of the “Charter of Fundamental Rights” of the European Constitutional Treaty.

The path will include several stages representing past and future, Remembrance and European citizenship.

Participants will constantly compare their opinions through an Internet forum and during visits to very significant places such as:

• City of Krakow, Poland, and the nearby ex-concentration camp of Auschwitz, on the event of January 27th, Holocaust Memorial Day, to commemorate the Holocaust’s victims and to celebrate the liberation of the camp by the Russian Red Army marching toward Berlin;
• City of Rome, on the event of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome signed on March 25th, 1957, treaty which established the European Economic Community;
• European Parliament of Strasbourg, as a symbolic place where European Institutions work together to keep peace among the countries and avoid world conflicts. The visit is planned at the end of the project's activities, as the final stage of the path.

The project, that will be held from September 2006 to May 2007, is addressed to three different kind of groups, so that the the project itself is divided into “The Phoenix, Europe”, “The Phoenix, Italy”, and “The Phoenix, Theatre”.

Subjects taking part in the Phoenix, Europe:
A delegation of 400 to 700 young people coming from some Member EU States, from the States that are queuing up to join it, and the ones that we consider as likely to become part of Europe in the next future. All these groups, leaded by two group leaders, gather togheter in four occasions: on January 27^th, 2007 in Krakow; on March 22^nd to 27^th in Torino; on March 25^th, 2007 in Rome; and about the end of May 2007 in Strasbourg to visit the European Parliament. All along the year, group leaders will foster through an Internet forum a reflection upon the fundamental values of Europe, seen as an supranational Institution able to guarantee peace and prosperity to its own citizens and to the whole world.

Subjects taking part in the Phoenix, Italy:
A group of 1300 young people coming from Torino and Piedmont, from Rome and from the province of Lecce. During school time, they received an educational and formative training upon Remembrance and European citizenship topics. All of them reached by train the city of Krakow in Poland and visited the Auschwitz Museum and Memorial, on January 27^th, and will also meet on April 25^th. Among them there will be a smaller group that will participate to “The Phoenix, Europe” as the Italian delegation. Therefore the two groups of participants will meet each other at these two moments.

The Phoenix, Europe

The delegation composed of 400 to 700 young European people will work together from September 2006 to May 2007, in order to create a forum of discussion on the Internet, based on topics concerning the European Union and linked by a common past. The very aim of the web forum is to create a network among young European citizens.

In November 2006, group leaders from all countries took part in a training course in Turin, Italy, in order to define topics of discussion and operative forms for subsequent activities. Following this meeting, the discussion was carried along via the Web. Each delegation was requested to present on the web forum a specific event, considered particularly significant for the history of its country, and share it with the other delegations. Group leaders were called to stimulate and animate the discussion among their groups and invite all members to participate. This was the first stage to prepare the two very important meetings, in Krakow and Rome.

In the days following January 27^th, all youth were invited to participate in a trip to Krakow where they had the possibility to visit the Auschwitz Museum and Memorial. Afterward, they gathered to talk about impressions and emotions of the visit. On this occasion, all delegations did personally share the events they have been preparing on the web forum in the previous months. This way, the youth from all over Europe shared historical events, connecting them in order to rebuild our common past and look at it as the basis for a common future. The operative form of this exchange was based on informal education and peer-exchange.

During the time between January and March, 2007, all participants will be requested to carry on the discussion on the web forum, most of all concerning topical events in the history of Europe, in order to reach the next stage with most of the matters already discussed and shared. The discussion will be aimed at writing a final document collecting opinions from the European youth.

From March 22^nd to 27^th, 2007, all delegations will be hosted in Turin. They will have the possibility to visit the city and gather again to discuss about the topical events they'll have been preparing in the previous months on the web forum. During this stage of the project, delegations will work separately on specific topics, and afterward all groups will collect their work's results in order to draft a unique document concerning European topics. This stage will be suspended on March 24^th, when all participants will leave toward Rome.

On March 25^th, 2007 in Rome, all participants will have the possibility to visit the “Fosse Ardeatine Park”, to commemorate the 63th anniversary of the tragic massacre of 320 civilians committed by the Nazis in 1944. In the afternoon they will also participate in the celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome that established in 1957 the European Economic Community (EEC).

Then, they will go back to Turin to complete the meeting activities until the 27^th.

During the second week of April, all 25 group leaders will meet again in Turin, Italy, where they will write the final document which draft will have been elaborated previously by all 700 participants. Experts in matter of constitution will be supporting the whole work.

In May 2007, all participants will be invited by the European Parliament for a visit to its seat in Strasbourg. On this occasion, the whole team will have the possibility to deliver their final document, and have it symbolically recognized, it being the result of a one-year common work that involved young people from all over Europe.

The Phoenix, Italy

In parallel with the course proposed to the European delegations, a group of young people coming from the Italian regions Piemonte, Puglia and Lazio experienced similar stages, but had the chance to delve into the memory-commitment binomial from different points of view. The course started in Autumn in the schools the participants attend. Educators and entertainers from the territory and the Association Terra del Fuoco built approach courses in view of the travel to Krakow planned for January 27^th, 2007, through peer-education work, class and institution assemblies, and specific laboratories. The participants came close to the theme of memory, and particularly of Holocaust, and the aim was that of stimulating a right approach on the visit to the extermination camp and the will to confront themselves with their coetaneous regarding these matters, trying to stress the actuality of the theme of racism. The participants were called upon preparing cognitive and elaborative instruments about memory, not only European, but basically connected with their territories, to be exposed in their schools, and thus trying to stimulate to reflection as well the students who did not directly participate in the project.

Two trains left Turin, one on the 24^th of January and the other on 27^th. Before departure, an assembly was held in Turin into which the students from the provinces of Turin, Lecce and Rome merged, giving a sum of 650 students for each train. At the end of the assembly, a march crossed the centre of Turin toward the central railway station, from which the trains departed, symbolically re-covering the path of the trains that deported thousands of people to the Auschwitz camp during the World War II. During this stage's four days, the participants visited the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps. In the afternoons, study sessions were held with historians, politicians and witnesses of the Holocaust, with the collaboration by the City of Krakow, the Italian Institute of Culture and the Auschwitz Museum and Memorial. Nightly, theatrical and musical entertainment by Italian and Polish artists were proposed.

In the time subsequent to the Krakow stage, the project's educators will revise and comment out the experience, trying to make the motivating forces emerged flow together toward the last stage of the course, the April 25^th celebration in Italy. On this date we wish to gather again all the young participants together, in a march and a final concert, in order to make the 62th anniversary of liberation from fascism, actually a holiday as well.

The Phoenix, Theatre

Along with the other activities, a theatrical laboratory was organized, involving five Italian young people, two French, five Polish and one Spanish.

Guided by the Italian actor and director Marco Alotto, these young actors prepared a theatrical performance centered on the themes concerned by the project.

The script was collectively written by the participants themselves during two stage camps, the first one held in October in Lanslebourg, France, and the other on the occasion of the Krakow stage in January.

The result of this work is a theatrical performance entitled "The Pleasure of Hatred". The performance functions as an educational device for all other participants; it was, and will be, represented during all subsequent stages of the project, in Krakow, Rome and Turin.