Newsletter

Newsletter 26

cw

Dear friends,

The longer the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine goes on, and the more Russia’s rulers continue to proclaim that they are waging a justified war, the more important it becomes to unmask their rhetoric and false motives. This is why the committee of “Ad Pacem servandam – For Peace and Against War” has organised several conferences in 2022 and 2023 given by specialists who are familiar with Europe and the Ukrainian, Russian and (post)Soviet worlds.

Our two guests at the Salon du Livre et des Cultures in Luxembourg-City in 2022 and 2023 were Jacques FAURE and Manfred SAPPER respectively. The former is a French diplomat who was also ambassador to Kyiv, and the latter has been the director of Osteuropa, the oldest Eastern European journal founded in Berlin in 1925, since 2002.

Their lectures can now be accessed on our website via the following links:
Jacques FAURE: What peaceful policy for Europe in the face of Russian military aggression against Ukraine?
Manfred SAPPER: Test Case Ukraine – Russia’s War, the West and the Paths to Peace
By clicking on the “The whole conference” link, you can discover the transcript of the entire conference. Clicking on “Summary” will take you to a text summarising the main points.
You can also listen to and watch the full lecture on YouTube:
Jacques FAURE : Quelle politique pacifique de l’Europe face à l’agression militaire russe contre l’Ukraine ? (YouTube)
Manfred SAPPER: Testfall Ukraine – Russlands Krieg, der Westen und die Wege zum Frieden (YouTube)

The truths you will read or hear are well-founded and will help you to understand this war, the European dimension of which increases every day.

If you have any questions about these two conferences, please contact our committee at [email protected].

Wishing for a just peace for Ukraine,

Claude Pantaleoni
Chairman

Discovering places of conflict

Bastogne War Museum

Laurent Tran Van Mang

Cultural outing in Belgium

On Saturday 17 June 2023, the committee of the “Ad Pacem servandam – Pour la Paix et contre la Guerre” association organised a visit to the Bastogne War Museum (B).

This museum is a major remembrance site in the Ardennes dedicated to the Second World War. It houses many maps, settings, testimonies and films from the time of the Second World War, enabling visitors to relive and understand the Battle of the Bulge, which took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945 around the town of Bastogne.

From 10 a.m. to 1.30 p.m., the sixteen-strong group visited, at their own pace, all the exhibitions and multimedia rooms with audio guides that, thanks to interactive terminals placed along the route, inform visitors in their chosen language (Dutch, English, German or French) about the important events of this Battle.

Visitors can also enjoy an immersive experience thanks to three multi-sensory shows that take them on the journey of four characters at the heart of the conflict.

After lunch on the terrace of the “Bistrot de la Paix”, the group moved on to the Bois St Jacques, where they were able to (re)experience, for thirty minutes, a key moment in the battlefield of the Bois Jacques through an augmented reality mobile application. For a brief moment, they were able to share in the daily life of Easy Company’s G.I.s holed up in the foxholes.

The group in front of the museum entrance

Continue reading “Bastogne War Museum” →
Russia’s war against Ukraine, Support actions for Ukraine

Since March 2023, Ad Pacem has been supporting the Misto Dobra (City of Goodness) children’s home in Chernivtsi (Western Ukraine), where the centre accommodates 400 war refugees, including 150 children from orphanages. They are children from birth to 7 years old. Since the beginning of the war, mothers with children from the war zones have also been taken in. In addition, three children’s homes from Odessa and Mykolaiv were evacuated there. Until mid-May 2023, 10 children’s beds, 10 children’s commodes with changing tables, 5 air purifiers and a Kärcher steam cleaner were financed.

Laurent Tran Van Mang
Newsletter

Newsletter 25

Laurent Tran Van Mang

Dear friends,

Visiting museums, exhibitions and places of remembrance of past wars is one of the activities of our Ad Pacem association. Because of the Covid period and our commitment to Ukrainian refugees in 2022, following the Russian war of aggression, we have temporarily suspended these activities.

Bastogne War Museum

On Saturday 17 June, we invite you to visit the Bastogne War Museum.
The guided tour will start at the Museum at 9am and finish, for the first part, at around 12.30pm. Afterwards, there will be an opportunity to visit the Museum bookshop and have a coffee at the Bistrot de la Paix. Afterwards, we’ll have a picnic with our packed lunches in an area of the museum, with one drink per person. At around 1.30pm, we’ll continue with a second half-hour outing a few kilometres from the museum.
At around 2.30pm we’ll start our return journey home.
Admission will cost €20 for adults, and our association will pay the entrance fees for young people under 16.
For those who would like to carpool, please let us know by 15 June on [email protected] if you are one of us, have a car or would like to be driven to Bastogne.
Our secretary will contact you to organise car pooling from the various meeting points.

Bike for climate – bike for peace

I’d like to take this opportunity to announce our next Bike for climate event on Saturday 15 July from 10am to around 5pm on the cycle paths of southern Luxembourg.
Cycling is good for your health, for the climate and for peace!
So don’t hesitate to save the date and join us!
You can already register by emailing [email protected]. We’ll be sending you more information about the tour itself by email in early July.

Peace greetings!

Claude Pantaleoni
Chairman

Bike for climate – bike for peace

4th Bike for climate – Bike for peace

Laurent Tran Van Mang

On Saturday morning, 20 May 2023, eight of us had arranged to meet at Bettembourg station for a 46 km bike ride on the cycle paths in the south of Luxembourg.

We first cycled through Peppange (past the former Benedictine convent) and Hellange, then crossed the French border in the middle of fields and discovered the villages of Hagen and Évrange on our way, as well as the monuments to the victims of the two world wars. In Évrange, we paused to visit the neo-Gothic church dedicated to Saint Albin, which is open to the public, and to admire the stained glass windows inside, two of which have war and peace as their theme. (The church was partially destroyed during the Second World War and restored after the war) .

After crossing the border again, we stopped in Aspelt near the Baroque castle and the bronze statue of Peter of Aspelt (1240-1320, Elector and Archbishop of Mainz), erected in his honour in 2021 on the square in front of the church. The sculpture in question, however, left us rather perplexed due to the artistic choices: Peter von Aspelt is namely depicted without any episcopal insignia and has a strangely androgynous appearance.

The lunch break took place in Dalheim at the foot of the Eagle Monument. This is a column about ten metres high, with a Roman eagle perched on top of a globe. This monument was erected in 1855 by the “Société archéologique luxembourgeoise” to commemorate the presence of the Romans in Dalheim, in particular the Vicus Ricciacum. Just a few steps away from this site, we were also able to visit the Gallo-Roman theatre on our way down to Dalheim. This ancient amphitheatre, which could seat about 3,500 spectators, probably dates from the 2nd century.

We then drove back via Hassel, Alzingen and Hesperange, where we had a last break at the pond in the middle of the city park. At 4.30 p.m., our group arrived back at the car park at Bettemburg station, the end point of this cycle tour, in ideal weather conditions.

Newsletter

Newsletter 24

cw

Dear friends, dear members of Ad Pacem,

The rediscovery of cycling symbolises the ecological and energetic alternatives that men and women must (re)discover for their own well-being and that of future generations. The cycle paths created or rehabilitated in recent years are there to help us change, at least in part, our habits of locomotion. In addition, we can (re)discover the nature of our countryside and forests and the well-being of unpolluted air.

Our Ad Pacem committee invites you to pedal together
on Saturday 20 May from 9.30 am to about 5 pm
on a looped route that we have chosen,
starting from the car park of the train station in Bettembourg.
You can discover the route by clicking on the following link: Ad Pacem Bike Tour 4.

There is the possibility to arrive by train or to leave the car on the car park during the whole day. Each participant will bring a packed lunch. A list of tips will be sent to participants two days before the event. You can notify us of your participation by e-mail at [email protected].

Cycling is good for your health, for the climate and for peace!
So don’t hesitate to join us!

Please also remember the date of Saturday 17 June for our visit to the Bastogne War Museum, where we will have a guided tour in the morning.
More information will follow in a future Newsletter.

Greetings of peace!

Claude Pantaleoni
President of the asbl
“For Peace and Against War”

Bike for climate – bike for peace

3rd Bike for climate – bike for peace

Laurent Tran Van Mang

29 April 2023

Twelve members of the Ad Pacem association met in the middle of the morning on Saturday 29 April 2023 on the car park of the railway station in Bettembourg (L) for a bike ride. After a rainy and cold start to the spring, this bike ride provided hours of fresh air from the meadows and fields.

Energy dependency
The association supports cycling, also in view of the current wars, which are often wars for the control of oil and gas fields or for the dependence of entire populations who do not have them.

Oil and gas energies are powerful levers of power in the hands of certain belligerent states, as is the case of Russia, which has long been a major supplier of these energies to Europe and the Ukraine.

It is true that cycling is only partly a way out of these energy dependencies. But it symbolises the ecological transition to renewable and healthy energy sources for humans.

Dead miners for the development of the country
After passing through Dudelange-Burange and Budersberg, Kayl, Tétange and Rumelange with its Mining Museum, the group took a lunch break at the place called “Léiffrächen”, at the foot of the National Miners’ Monument which commemorates the very many people who died in the mines of Luxembourg from the second half of the 18th century until the 1950s. It should be remembered that several young people between 13 and 15 years of age were among the victims of dangerous work in the mines.

The tour continued with the descent to the Ellergrond, a nature reserve near the French border, to Esch-sur-Alzette. The group then took the new footbridge of the cycle path that leads to the heart of the Belval site. After a short break, the group continued towards Lallange, Schifflange, Huncherange to arrive at the car park of the station of Bettembourg, terminus of the tour, around 4 pm.

Cycle paths without cyclists
With this cycling day, the association reminds all political leaders that cycling must be politically encouraged among the population. During the whole day, the participants hardly met any other cycling fans on the cycle paths, which were all in perfect condition.

Newsletter

Newsletter 23

cw

Dear friends, dear members of Ad Pacem,

Throughout the year 2022 the activities of our association were strongly conditioned by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Our help went to Ukrainian refugees who first came to the big cities of western Ukraine and then to families who came to our Region to find refuge. In the second half of the year, the bombardment of cities by Russian missiles and drones again accentuated these population movements. Throughout the year we have been supporting the hospitals in Kramatorsk and Kharkiv with material and medicine, as well as a team of doctors who are helping in a small field hospital behind the Ukrainian front in the Kharkiv region. We are now helping these doctors mainly with the proceeds from the sale of this year’s calendar.
As the front has now “stabilised” in the south-east and south of Ukraine, there is less movement of people, although the number of wounded and dead soldiers on the Ukrainian side (Russia does not give any information about its dead or wounded soldiers) is in the hundreds every day.

On 22 March 2023 we held our 6th General Assembly. You can read the minutes by clicking on the following link: Minutes of our 6th General Assembly 2023

In the coming months we will resume activities that we started in 2018 and 2019, and that we had to drop during the pandemic years.
On Saturday 29 April from 9.15 a.m. until about 5 p.m. we will organise a “Bike for future – bike for peace” day on the cycle paths in the south of Luxembourg. On the link Ad Pacem Bike Tour you can discover the route. This day is open to all our members and interested friends. You can communicate your participation at [email protected].

Finally, we are organising an outing to learn about the history of the wars through a visit to the Bastogne War Museum where we will be able to relive some of the highlights of the Battle of the Bulge. This will be on Saturday 17 June, from 8.30 a.m. (departure in Esch/Alzette) until the return around 4 p.m. Those who are interested can already save this date. You will have more information and the possibility to register in a future Newsletter.

I bid you a good reception of this Newsletter 23,
with my best wishes for more peace,

Claude Pantaleoni
President of the asbl
“For Peace and Against War”