Centre of hope for Poland and Germany ... a Silesian estate which once focused the hopes of the German resistance to Hitler - and is now playing a part in healing Europe's divisions.

Silesia, which is now the western part of Poland but was once part of Germany, has long been a bone of contention between Germans and Poles. Only now, more than 50 years after World War II and ten years after the fall of Communism, does the bitterness seem to be fading. The two nations are discovering Silesia as a common heritage.

One symbol for this is a country estate which the Germans call Kreisau and the Poles call Krzyzowa. It lies an hour's drive from the Silesian capital of Wroclaw (Breslau).

Kreisau was bought in 1867 by the Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke, who later commanded the German armies in the 1870-71 war against France. During World War II, a group of the German resistance met there to plan for a new Germany without Hitler. Many of the members of this Kreisauer Kreis (Kreisau Circle) had to pay with their lives for this hope.

Today Kreisau/Krzyzowa is a place where Poles and Germans can meet and work towards the reconciliation of their countries. It could be called a workshop for a common Europe.

Between those two phases in the history of Kreisau, there was half a century which almost destroyed its beautiful castle and outbuildings. They served first as barracks for Soviet soldiers, then as barns and cowsheds for a local collective farm.

Kreisau's new life started in 1989, the year that saw the end of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe. Polish intellectuals and Germans from East and West rediscovered the estate. `In fact, two students of theology from East Berlin first mentioned Krzyzowa to us,' remembers Ewa Unger from the Catholic Intelligentsia Club in Wroclaw. The idea of a conference centre for young people was born, and a foundation was established. Unger is its chairperson.

Only days after the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989 the first non-communist Prime Minister of Poland, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, and Chancellor Helmut Kohl of German attended a reconciliation Mass in Kreisau. They shook hands and embraced as a sign of peace.

The drive to save the run-down buildings lasted nine years and cost some DM 29 million (about 10 million) [pounds sterling], part of which was paid by the German government. `Architects told us that we had arrived at the very last moment,' says Ewa Unger.

The castle was converted into a modern conference centre. Sheds and barns became dining halls or bedrooms. The centre can accommodate 167 people at hotel or youth hostel level--and clocked up over 20,000 bednights in 1998, the year of its official opening. School classes from Poland, Gemany, France and the Netherlands meet here. Guests arrive from Ukraine, Russia and the Baltic States.

The Kreisau Circle met ten minutes' walk from the Field Marshall's castle in the much simpler home of Graf Helmuth James yon Moltke. They disguised their three meetings between 1942 and 1943 as family gatherings. At mealtimes, when others might hear them, no word about politics was allowed: they only talked freely in the small living room.

Von Moltke and his fellow conspirators, Graf Peter Yorck yon Wartenburg and Adam yon Trott zu Solz, were planning for a new democratic order in Germany after the fall of Hitler's regime. Around the table in Kreisau these members of the Prussian gentry gathered left-leaning trade unionists and church leaders. Most of the circle were arrested in 1944. Von Moltke was shot in 1945.

Poles, with their own history of resistance against dictatorship, appreciate the Kreisau experience. An exhibition in the castle draws a line from the resistance against Hitler to the dissent in the countries of the Soviet bloc. Pictures show Polish Solidarity activists, Lithuanian underground priests, Ukrainian poets and Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov.

The Kreisau Circle was the least nationalist of the different German resistance groups. They hoped for a united Europe. `This is why they are so close to us,' says Ewa Unger. `We want to remain faithful to this spirit and bring understanding between nations.'

The scars of history run deep between Germans and Poles. Three million Poles died under the German occupation during World War II. The genocide of European Jews mostly took place on Polish territory. On the German side the loss of Silesia and the Eastern provinces to Poland and the expulsion of ethnic Germans after 1945 made reconciliation difficult.

Kreisau is a place where people can talk openly about the burdens of the past. `It takes great patience from both sides to understand the evil that history has brought,' the Polish Minister of State Planning, Jerzy Kropiwnicki, told an MRA conference in Kreisau in October 1998. He added: `For people like me German-Polish reconciliation is the basis of European unification.'

Even more important than healing the past is planning for the future. Poland has joined NATO and will become a member of the European Union: a complex process. But the young people coming to Kreisau/ Krzyzowa are willing to create this future. `We are young, we think differently,' says Artur Sieklucki, a student of economics from Krakow. `We have the opportunity to bring change together with others.'