Freedom Express stops over in Warsaw

The travellers will take their seats for a workshop on democracy at the historic Round Table, when representatives of Solidarity and the communist regime reached an accord paving the way for the trade union's landslide victory in the June 1989 elections.

The day’s programme also includes a visit to the Rakowiecka prison, where many political prisoners served their terms and a meeting with one interned Solidarity activist Jan Lityński.

‘Freedom Express’ is an initiative of the Berlin-based European Network – Remembrance and Solidarity, an organization created by the ministers of culture of Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia to document and promote the study of 20th-century history and how it is remembered.

The tour began in Gdansk, the cradle of the Solidarity movement last weekend.

From Warsaw the group travel through Warsaw, Budapest, Timsoara, Sopron, Bratislava, Prague and finish in Berlin on 13 September.

The programme includes meetings with the spiritual leader of the Romanian revolution of 1989 Laszlo Tokes and members of the legendary Czech pop group Plastic People of the Universe.

The participants come from ten countries, including four Germans, three Poles, three Czechs, two participants from Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine each and one each from Costa Rica, Moldova, Hungary and Great Britain.

All are all graduates of philosophy, journalism, sociology, political science, IT and the arts: the oldest was them was born in 1983, the youngest, in 1994. (mk/pg)