On Friday, 27 July 2018 at 3:00 p.m., this year’s WORCATION, the multilateral youth encounter with a work camp character, came to its ceremonial conclusion. The participants reported on their experience and their work and commemorated the victims of the prisoner of war camp STALAG VIII A with all supporters, helpers and interested parties of WORCATION 2018.
During the two weeks together (14-28 July 2018), young people aged 16 to 24 from Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Italy and France worked on the site and thus participated in the living culture of remembrance of the place. Among them were five participants from Görlitz’s twin city Amiens (FR). With the archaeologist Paweł Zawadzki, the participants were able to uncover two night toilets of a barrack and accompany the entire archaeological process of this excavation. During the final events, the Italian Giulia Morelli gave interesting finds to District Administrator Bernd Lange, the Mayor of Görlitz Siegfried Deinege and the Deputy Mayor of Zgorzelec Radoslaw Baranowski and explained the different phases of the process.
The daily scientific work at the authentic site and finding personal objects was an interesting aspect for the group. “It allowed us to commemorate the victims of the camp,” explained Gwenn Fraser from Amiens.
Directly between the two excavation sites is now a piece of land art – art made from natural fabrics in the open air. With the support of Eric Beier and Susanne Buchart, the second group explored the concept of art and decided to represent their thoughts about the site in this way. “The material came directly from the STALAG site – branches, leaves and bricks excavated directly by the archaeologists,” said Eric Beier. A poem written by the group was received in all five languages and Hubert Grabowski from Poland played the horn to it.
Afterwards, everyone went together to the memorial to lay wreaths and commemorate the victims of the STALAG VIII A POW camp.
Worcation was organised for the eleventh time by MEETINGPOINT MUSIC MESSIAEN e.V..
