30 Years After the Fall of the Iron Curtain was co-funded by the Europe for Citizens Programme (EFC). Marking the 30-year anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain, the aim of the project was to reflect on and raise awareness of the totalitarian past of Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland and Romania. Giving citizens an awareness of their history, the project aimed to celebrate three decades of democracy and, in the face of a strengthening far-right rhetoric across Europe, to send out a message of hope, tolerance and equality.

The project is made up of three inter-related activities. First, thousands of witnesses’ testimonies were collected, and 40 participants were interviewed and professionally filmed. Recorded testimonies of the events of 1989, historical photographs and documents were also compiled and uploaded onto an online archive, called “Memory of Nations”. Exhibitions across various cities in the four countries were also produced, including installations of the archival materials and testimonies in public spaces. Finally, the project delivered 12 educational workshops in each of the 4 countries- 4 in primary schools, 4 in secondary schools and 4 in universities. The interactive workshops were based on the collected testimonies of the events of 1989.

The managing organisation is Post Bellum SK, an NGO which documents testimonies of 20th century historical events and disseminates them to the wider public, in partnership with 3 local organisations in Czech Republic, Poland and Romania. 35 experts in filmmaking and directing offered insights for the filmed interviews, the stories of which reached thousands of citizens, and over 270 people took part in the workshops.