Cecilia Badano

The LRE Foundation will attend the Cycle Summit 2023 

Posted on by Cecilia Badano

The LRE Foundation continues the important work of promoting its network’s initiatives and the Liberation Route Europe project. The Cycle Summit, which will take place from October 9-10 in Riolo Terme, Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, is the next scheduled event. Our Project Officer, Emme Johnson, will attend the event. 

The Cycle Summit, an important international travel trade conference centred on cycling tourism, has been a consistent forum for the LRE Foundation in recent years. Emme’s agenda during the summit includes meetings with tour operators to raise awareness of the Liberation Route Europe hiking and cycling trails project across the continent. The goal is to encourage tour operators to incorporate the Liberation Route into their travel offerings. 

Cooperation with the travel trade sector is key for Liberation Route Europe, which works with international partners to make European history more visible and accessible to travellers from all over the world. The emphasis on cycling and hiking tour operators is critical for combining Liberation Route Europe with innovative and sustainable tourism products and special offers, as well as promoting the route among cycling enthusiasts and visitors seeking a combination of outdoor, cultural, and historical experiences. 

This year’s Cycle Summit, following the previous edition in Chambery, France, boasts the participation of 147 individuals, representing over 100 tour operators from 29 countries worldwide. 

Following two days of in-person networking meetings, Emme will join the FAM trip to explore the picturesque areas of Faenza-Brisighella-Ravenna on foot and by bike, alongside other representatives from the travel trade sector. 

The first ‘Persecution Through Their Eyes’ youth event took place in Camp Vught National Memorial on June 16

Posted on by Cecilia Badano

On June 16, the first of four Persecution Through Their Eyes youth events was held with great success in Camp Vught National Memorial. Animations made by students of the St. Joost School of Art & Design were shown, and participants visited the impactful ‘Persecution Through Their Eyes’ exhibition, immersing themselves in the stories  of individuals whose lives were linked to acts of persecution during the Second World War.

Persecution Through Their Eyes is a European Union-funded project that aims to broaden a multi-perspective, transnational understanding of Nazi persecution by shedding light on the diverse experiences of its victims and perpetrators. Among the victims are Jews, Roma/Sinti, political prisoners, homosexuals, prisoners of war, civilians, and resistance fighters.

The project is organised by the LRE Foundation with some prominent project partners: Camp Vught National Memorial (Netherlands), Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation (Germany), the National Peace Park of Sant’Anna di Stazzema (Italy), and Grodzka Gate –  NN Theatre Centre in Lublin (Poland).

The inaugural youth event provided students with an opportunity to delve into the permanent exhibition of the Camp Vught National Memorial and gain deeper insights into the camp’s history. The event’s key moments were the unveiling of the Persecution Through Their Eyes exhibition and the screening of short films created by the students to animate the stories included in the exhibition. The audience was captivated by the diverse approaches employed by students in the development and storytelling process.

The animations that emerged from this project not only enrich the exhibition panels but also enhance the visitor experience by providing an additional means to grasp the gravity of such stories and historical facts.  The exhibition, along with the accompanying animations, can now be viewed by the public at Barracks 1B, which is located 500 meters away from the main building of the Camp Vught memorial.

The Persecution Through Their Eyes project will continue to empower and inspire young people with upcoming youth events organised by the other project partners in Germany, Italy and Poland.

LRE Foundation signs Memorandums of Understanding with Cranwell Aviation Heritage Museum and Lincolnshire Ramblers (UK)

Posted on by Cecilia Badano

As the LRE UK national branch continues to grow, we are pleased to welcome two new partners: Cranwell Aviation Heritage Museum and Lincolnshire Ramblers! Both organisations are based in Lincolnshire, where we are developing a new section of the Liberation Route Europe Trails highlighting the county’s rich Second World War aviation history. 

Cranwell Aviation Heritage Museum is a superb location to learn about the history of RAF Cranwell, a nearby Royal Air Force base which played a key role during the War. With aircraft to view, a simulator, and many artefacts and exhibits, the museum offers an engaging way to learn about aviation history. The first step in our collaboration will be the integration of the museum into the Liberation Route Europe Trails network, which will pass through the village of Cranwell, signposting visitors to the museum. 

“As an area very much at the heart of the mission to liberate Europe through airborne operations, I am very proud and pleased that the District will be a part of this Europe-wide project to remember the past, to create a better future.”, says Cllr Richard Wright, Leader of North Kesteven District Council which operates Cranwell Aviation Heritage Museum. “Cranwell Aviation Heritage Museum acts as a focal point for North Kesteven’s rich aviation heritage and celebrates more than a century of training at the adjacent RAF College Cranwell of many prestigious airmen who were very much a part of that liberation journey. The museum is a very proud partner in this exciting project. With Cranwell at its south, the International Bomber Command Centre at the north and an extensive trail of historic and still-operational airfields in between – many of them Bomber Command bases in support of the Liberation advance – the extent of North Kesteven’s aviation heritage is unsurpassed.”  

Lincolnshire Area Ramblers, part of The Ramblers, a UK national walking and campaigning charity, are an invaluable partner in the development of the Lincolnshire Liberation Route. Their support and expertise in connecting local sites of interest via the best hiking trails are hugely appreciated, given the county’s vast network of trails and roads. Thanks to their local knowledge, walkers will be able to explore the local Second World War history as they pass through the wonderful Lincolnshire countryside. 

“Lincolnshire Ramblers are proud to be a partner with the LRE Foundation. Lincolnshire has many locations with connections to the Second World War conflict and the newly-devised trail will link many of these, bringing to life the realities of the war. It will also give visitors the opportunity to explore the delights of Lincolnshire, with its golden beaches, beautiful countryside and attractive market towns.” – Geoff Mullett, Chair of Lincolnshire Ramblers. 

The new Europe Remembers event registration platform is online!

Posted on by Cecilia Badano

We are excited to announce the launch of the new Europe Remembers collaborative web platform aimed to bring together a diverse range of events and commemorations linked to the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. With a user-friendly interface and streamlined process, event organisers can now easily upload their event details to the platform for them to be displayed and promoted on the Europe Remembers website.

Europe Remembers returns with a brand-new website and communication campaign to raise awareness around the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, remembering the lessons it imparted and promoting the many commemorations and events organised around Europe. Building on the success of the previous edition for the 75th anniversary, the campaign will kick off in July 2023, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Landings in Sicily. From there, Europe Remembers will continue throughout 2024 and 2025, when commemorations for the 80th anniversary of the end of the war will take place.

The Europe Remembers collaborative website, which will be launched in July, is one of the pillars of the initiative and aims to become a one-stop destination for the public to find information about the events that will take place across Europe, which might be hard to find juggling between various websites and different languages. In addition to offering an overview of commemorations and exhibitions, the website will also provide a wealth of inspiring content related to remembrance sites, stories, and news connected to WWII memory and cultural heritage.

The newly launched registration platform is a first step in the direction of building a collaborative and international community around the memory of WWII. The platform offers cultural organisations and institutions dedicated to this topic an easy way to add their events on the europeremembers.com website, where they will be made accessible to a wide international audience. In addition to basic visibility, project partners and campaign supporters will receive dedicated promotional tools, and their events will receive special promotional attention on the website.

To register your organisation and/or your events, click here.

If you would like to join us or organise your own Europe Remembers campaign, contact us at europe-remembers@lre-foundation.org. For more information, visit our website

Two press trips to promote the Liberation Route Europe

Posted on by Cecilia Badano

Between the end of April and the beginning of May, the LRE Foundation, with the help of Bart Giepmans from Eastbound PR, organized two press trips to promote the Liberation Route Europe. Journalists from various newspapers in Germany, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands took part in the two journeys. 

The first press trip began on April 23 in Portsmouth, where the group, guided by LRE UK Director Ben Mayne, visited museums such as the LRE Foundation member D-Day Story, memorials, and landmarks associated with the preparation for D-Day on the Liberation Route hiking trail connecting London and Southampton. The journalists then travelled to Normandy with LRE France Director Isabelle Lebreton to visit some of the sites on the D-Day beaches-themed route, including the Juno Beach Centre and the D-Day Landings Museum in Arromanches, among others. The trip concluded on April 28 in Jersey, where Visit Jersey and Jersey Heritage welcomed the group that had a chance to visit some of the main sites along the two Liberation Route Europe themed routes on the island. 

The second press trip took the journalists on a historical tour of the Luxembourg and Belgian Ardennes, visiting sites connected with the Liberation Route Europe themed route dedicated to the Battle of the Bulge, including the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial, the National Museum of Military History in Diekirch and the Bastogne War Museum.  This second trip concluded on May 5 in Germany, where the group visited some parts of the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest themed route, such as the Vogelsang Complex, as well as some points of interest in Remagen.

“The two press trips, which were funded by the German Foreign Office, were an excellent opportunity to raise awareness of the Liberation Route Europe project and the values it represents.” says Gert-Jan Jacobs, LREF Press and Communication Advisor, “We are grateful for the LRE Foundation network’s collaboration in supporting such cultural and tourism initiatives. A special mention goes to the guides that took us along the route, their contribution was crucial for the realisation of these trips. We hope that the media attention generated by these press trips will introduce the Liberation Route Europe to new audiences from a broad range of countries.” 

We would like to express our appreciation to our partners who provided support throughout these trips: The D-Day Story, Brittany Ferries, Normandie Tourisme, Région Normandie, Visit Jersey, Jersey Heritage, Juno Beach Centre, the Luxembourg General Directorate for Tourism, the National Museum of Military History in Diekirch, the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial, Bastogne War Museum, the Vogelsang complex,  Remagen.

Jurriaan de Mol appointed Honorary Chairman of the LRE Foundation Board

Posted on by Cecilia Badano

The LRE Foundation is beyond happy and proud to announce the recent appointment of our former Deputy Director, Jurriaan de Mol, as Honorary Chairman of the LRE Foundation Advisory Board. 

From Liberation Route Europe initiator in 2007 to Chairman, driving force, Project Manager, and Deputy Director  – Jurriaan de Mol  has been involved in the creation and work of the LRE Foundation from the very beginning. In a short interview, Jurriaan tells the story of this 15-year-long adventure alongside the LRE Foundation: 

“After all those years, 15 years, I am still very excited and moved by the fact that the team of Liberation Route Europe is still working today on enlarging the trail from Southern England to Berlin but also the trails in southern Europe and more. This is a big achievement. […] People love to walk, and people are very interested in the stories that happened nearly 80 years ago – so yes, it is fantastic how we started and how far we got today.” says Jurriaan de Mol. 

Watch the interview and let Jurriaan’s enthusiasm guide you through the story about how the idea of connecting museums, cemeteries and remembrance sites came together and how he and many project partners laid the base for the international remembrance trail – Liberation Route Europe – and the LRE Foundation. 

A two-day workshop in the Shoah Memorial in Milan marks an important step for the “Persecution Through Their Eyes” project

Posted on by Cecilia Badano

On December 15 and 16, the Shoah Memorial in Milan hosted a two-day workshop as part of the “Persecution Through Their Eyes”, a project funded by the European Union. The gathering was intended to share and discuss different educational approaches to persecution during WWII, as well as brainstorm ideas for the upcoming exhibition and youth events.

The Milan workshop is one of the several activities that structured “Persecution Through Their Eyes”, an EU-funded LRE Youth Programme which involves a number of international partners: Camp Vught National Memorial (Netherlands), Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation (Germany), the National Peace Park of Sant’Anna di Stazzema (Italy), and “Grodzka Gate ‐ NN Theatre” Centre in Lublin (Poland).

After the welcoming remarks by Rémi Praud, Managing Director of LRE Foundation, and Mirco Carrettieri, Moderator and President of LRE Italy’s Scientific Committee the workshop’s first section featured experts’ speeches and presentations concerning various educational approaches and methods to the topic of persecution during WWII. The inclusion of speakers from different backgrounds gave this panel considerable value: Taja Vovk van Gaal (LRE Foundation’s Supervisory Board member and founding director of the House of European History), Talia Bidussa (Program Manager at the Shoah Memorial of Milan), Marta Baiardi (researcher at the Istituto Storico della Resistenza in Tuscany), Greta Bianchi (project assistant Children and Education at Fondazione Feltrinelli), Emanuele Edallo (researcher at the University of Milan), Elena Monicelli (coordinator at Scuola di Pace di Monte Sole), Chiara Nencioni (Università di Pisa – Istituto storico della Resistenza di Lucca ), Paolo Pezzino (President of Istituto Nazionale Ferruccio Parri), and Francesca Poli (Deina’s vice-president) focused on their institutions’ approaches, and their personal research in front of an audience made up of historians, museologists, university and high school professors.

Subsequently, the second part of the seminar brought together the “Persecution Through Theis Eyes” project’s partners to discuss the structure and the details of the upcoming exhibition, which will be one of the project’s core initiatives, taking place both virtually and physically in each of the four partner institutions and telling a wide range of personal stories related to persecution during WWII.

Eventually, the two-day workshop came to an intense and meaningful end with a guided tour provided by the Shoah Memorial in Milan to all workshop participants.

December 9 marked the conclusion of the first circle of the Liberations Route Europe Trails in Italy outreach events

Posted on by Cecilia Badano

From October to December, three outreach events in three different Italian regions were organised by LRE Italy to raise awareness about the Liberations Route Europe Trails.

The first took place on October 27 in Florence, Tuscany, in collaboration with the Tuscany Region, the Assessor’s Office of Memory Culture and International Relations, and the Assessor’s Office of Economy, Productive Activities, Credit Policies and Tourism. On November 15, the Shoa Museum Foundation in Rome, Lazio, hosted the second event, while the third and final one was held on December 9 in Bologna under the patronage of the Emilia-Romagna Region. 

All three initiatives were devoted to introducing LRE Italy and its work in the country. The meetings’ main focus was Liberation Route Europe Trails in Italy, a project funded by the Federal Republic of Germany’s Italian – German Fund for the Future and inspired by Liberation Route Europe that aims to create a network of thematic routes related to WWII throughout Italy.

The locations of the events in three different Italian regions were a significant added value to the project. Indeed, the events provide an opportunity to initiate a dialogue or, in some cases, strengthen an existing relationship with the various organizations that share an interest in the field, with the aim of expanding the Liberation Route Europe Trails in Italy to different parts of the peninsula. 

The LRE Foundation team and national branches come together for a three-day seminar 

Posted on by Cecilia Badano

After months of online meetings due to the pandemic, the LRE Foundation and the National Branches’ teams met in person for three days of seminars, discussions and idea exchange.

The meeting provided an opportunity for the LRE Foundation’s and the National Branches’ teams to share their experiences and best practices. The updates and potential growth of the numerous initiatives carried out in the various countries constituted one of the main topics of the seminars. Indeed, each National Branch had the time to illustrate the goals they are striving to achieve in the coming years as well as the targets they have already met.

A significant portion of the programme was devoted to the three primary projects of the Foundation – Liberation Route Europe, Europe Remembers and the Youth Programs. The various national approaches were discussed, broadening the teams’ perspectives and expertise in the process. The conversation touched on essential topics such as new partnerships, initiatives, and promotional channels. Through brainstorming exercises and horizontal discussions, each participant had the opportunity to speak, bringing a range of expertise, experience, ages and perspectives to the discussion and enhancing the debate’s outcomes with fresh and engaging points of view.

To complete the team building seminar, a tour of the Liberation Route Europe was organised, which included a guided tour of the German War Cemetery in Ysselstein, a visit to the network member the Overloon War Museum, and a visit to the Vector of Memory which commemorates the Battle of Overloon.

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