Social peace work
The Soziale Friedenswerk is an association founded in Salzburg in 1950 to help children and families in need. The founding was announced by Prince Archbishop Andreas Rohracher in a press conference on August 26, 1950. Other founding members included a. Governor Josef Rehrl , Governor Josef Klaus , Governor Josef Krainer d. Ä., Governor Heinrich Gleißner , Mayor Ernst Koref , the President of the Austrian Red Cross Burghard Breitner and the editor-in-chief of the Salzburger Nachrichten, Gustav Canaval as well as other eminent women and men from all parties and social backgrounds.
Goal setting
According to their own objectives was and is the social work of peace ", a non-partisan and confessional cross association for the promotion of youth and to support vulnerable people." The association's purpose is to through summer camps , family camps, scholarships to talented students and are met by grants to impoverished people. At the beginning, the target groups were all people in need (especially children and women) as well as refugees and displaced persons , especially those who received no help from the IRO (International Refugee Organization) and the International Red Cross . Over the years, German-speaking minority groups abroad and local families also came into focus.
history
The aim of the association was originally to give children and young people whose fathers either died in the war , were missing or were still in captivity , the opportunity to spend several weeks in the mountains of Carinthia , South Tyrol , the Salzkammergut and on the Baltic Sea . To this end, collections were organized and the “hearty house calendar”, a literary yearbook compiled, illustrated by well-known artists , and sold; his earnings support these subsidies significantly to this day.
Gradually, the association also turned to the German youth in Alsace - Lorraine and to Russian-German re- immigrant children in order to revive the often lost German language and culture at the summer camp; After the upheaval in Eastern Europe, contacts were expanded to Silesia, Bohemia and Moravia, Hungary, Romania, even the Ukraine, Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia, and children from the Canal Valley (Italy) and from Germany and Austria were also there the youth camps.
Norbert Scharnagel, who ran the association from Graz and Salzburg, was managing director for decades; In 2005, under chairman Klaus Hafner, the association's headquarters were relocated to Vienna and the Mörtlmühle in Bad Goisern was expanded to become the new center for summer camps. Further training in German and teaching the basics of the history of Austria and the Danube region are essential components of the association's tasks. In addition to these goals, the Friedenswerk is increasingly setting itself the task of networking young families from Austria. Verena Rosenkranz has been working with a younger board since 2017.
literature
- Wilhelm Svoboda: The Foundation “Social Peace Work” from 1945 to 1950. In: Hans Bayr et al. (Ed.): Salzburg 1945–1955. Destruction and rebuilding. Salzburger Museum Carolino Augusteum, Salzburg 1995, ISBN 3-901014-43-8 , pp. 133-137.