The anti-racist message of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association was at the heart of Europe’s largest music festival which brought together 500,000 people on 1-4 August 2013. The free open-air ‘Polish Woodstock’ festival took place in Kostrzyn on the Polish-German border.

The ‘Polish Woodstock’ festival prides itself on the friendly atmosphere and its educational value, too.

The event started by a minute of silence to commemorate those who had died during the anti-nazi Warsaw Uprising on 1 August 1944.

Major activities organized by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association at the festival site included a football tournament under the motto ‘Let’s

Kick Racism out of the Stadiums’. Players from all over Poland as well as other countries, including Russia, Ukraine, and Germany,

participated in the games. They were joined by a star team of ‘Project Integration’, composed of African-born footballers from various Polish

clubs, invited to the event by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association.

As part of its focus combining music and sports with education, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association organized workshops, presentations and discussions about discrimination, xenophobia and multiculturalism at its multi-lingual info-stand throughout the festival. Each day thousands of young people visited the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ info-stand, talked about the message and received anti-racist educational materials.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an educational and monitoring organization established in Poland in 1996. It is a regional East

European partner of the FARE Network. In 2009, in cooperation with UEFA and the FARE Network ‘NEVER AGAIN’ set up the East Europe Monitoring Centre documenting and challenging racism and xenophobia in the region.

In 2012, it implemented the 'RESPECT Diversity – Football Unites' social responsibility project accompanying the European Football Championships in Poland and Ukraine.

Published 07/08/2013