The creation of the Zgorzelec-Görlitz European Educational and Cultural Centre “Meetingpoint Music Messiaen” was preceded by years of work to restore the memory of Stalag VIII A. It is a difficult memory of the place—and perhaps an even more difficult memory of the people who found themselves here because of the war. Stories, figures and events emerging from the darkness of oblivion are returning to this place very slowly. This is undoubtedly thanks to the late Roman Zgłobicki, who saved the memory of this place, and to Albrecht Götze, a music enthusiast and visionary who consistently pursued his chosen goal.
But also to Olivier Messiaen. For the moving sounds of the clarinet, violin, cello and piano, ringing out in his apocalyptic “Quartet for the End of Time”, clearly lure the spirits of the past to this place and attract young people. This difficult and moving work, performed for eight years—always on 15 January—by outstanding musicians from different parts of the world, commemorates the traumatic camp premiere of the past, but not in order to remain trapped in it; rather, it helps us realise that the end of that terrible time has come and turn towards the future. The aim of the newly opened centre is to bring together young people from around the world: musical, historical and academic meetings for which the centre’s founders have created excellent conditions.
The Future Needs Dialogue
The programme of the opening ceremony of the new centre, which concluded with the traditional evening performance of Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time”, was filled with interesting events. A tour of the House of Memory, personally led for guests by the architectural project’s author, Christian Weise, a lecture presenting the profiles of 12 Polish prisoners of war from Messiaen’s circle, delivered by Kraków musicologist Prof. Jerzy Stankiewicz, and exhibitions: a permanent one devoted to Stalag VIII A and a temporary one presenting the prisoner-of-war camp in Żagań—these were only some of them. And the common theme of that day and the preceding eleven years filled with work, organising the site, youth meetings and artistic activities was MEMORY, without which there is no future.
This theme was also present in the speeches of guests invited by the hosts—the Centre for Supporting Entrepreneurship Foundation in Zgorzelec and the Meetingpoint Music Messiaen association in Görlitz—including, among others, Saxony’s Prime Minister Stanislaw Tillich, Marshal of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship Cezary Przybylski, Saxony’s Minister of Science and the Arts, Dr Eva Maria Stange, German Consul General in Wrocław Elisabeth Wolbers, and Prof. Dr Jerzy Stankiewicz. Dr Kazimierz Wóycicki spoke most fully and extensively about what had been, what is, and what the future of this place could—and indeed should—be. In his speech, he devoted considerable attention to the need for international dialogue about the past and shared aspirations: a dialogue that should take place here and support “a memory of our European continent that is open to the future”.
Renata Burdosz/ii