CS | DE

Meeting Brno 2016: Lost / Found Homes

In 2016, we launched the very first edition of the Meeting Brno festival, building on the ideas and legacy of the Year of Reconciliation. Its central theme—Lost / Found Homes—addressed a deeply resonant issue in the post-war Central European context, and one that remains just as urgent today. With a sense of shared responsibility, we created a cultural and discussion-based platform where we could reflect on the past, attempt to define our present, and—together—seek a way forward into the future.

In 2015, Brno hosted a far-reaching initiative titled the Year of Reconciliation, during which today’s Brno residents honoured the memory of their former Jewish, Roma, and German neighbours. The year-long programme, comprising more than eighty events and involving over thirty cultural organisations from Brno and the wider South Moravian region, reached tens of thousands of attendees and was warmly received across Central Europe.

One of the highlights of the Year of Reconciliation was the Pilgrimage of Reconciliation, held in memory of the victims of the so-called Brno Death March of 30 May 1945. In a symbolic gesture of reconciliation, the march followed the route in reverse—from the mass grave in Pohořelice back to the centre of Brno—where Mayor Petr Vokřál delivered the Declaration of Reconciliation and a Shared Future.

This historic document, adopted by the Brno City Assembly, was the first official statement addressing the expulsion of Brno’s German population. It expressed sorrow for the tragedies caused by the war and affirmed the hope that, having learned from history, we will never allow such events to happen again. It was with this spirit that we organised the very first edition of the Meeting Brno festival in 2016.