Roland SAURER                                                          ROGER WINTERHALTER

Leader of                                                                       Leader of

«The Conférence against Poverty”                                “The House of Worldcitizenship”  Baden  Württemberg » (Germany)                                 Mulhouse (France)

                                                              Dear Friends,

We recently heard about Neve Shalom, so we asked the French Friends of Neve Shalom for more informations about your Project, and we were amazed !

The first purpose of this letter is to pay tribute to your model peaceful cohabitation : a glimmer of Peace in a sky with scattered clouds of hate !!

So, while testimonies of Peace are overlaid by the noise of Killing and disabling Weapons, Women, Men and their Children of various origins and cultures stay together, live Side by Side, and enrich themselves with their Diversity.

As far as we are concerned, we live in two countries, Germany and France, on the two Sides of the river Rhine. During two bloody world wars our people fought fiercely; we were split, opponents, enemies.

Nowadays we work and fight together, mainly with people in precarious state, in Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Czechia and other countries.

We strove to listen to each other to be able to understand each other and to live side by side.

So we achieved to build up a network of solidarity, lunched by the “LAK” (Conference against Poverty) in Germany and the “MCM” (House of Worldcitizenship) in France.

Now we set up Offices for Human Rights in both countries.

We met recently in front of the”Monument to Life” in Lutterbach, a small village in Alsace, where one of us was Mayor for 20 Years. This monument depicts a smith hammering on an anvil to convert Weapons, here a tank Cannon, in Launchers of Flowers for Peace, with this quote from Isaiah : “With their Swords they will forge Flowers”

So today, being faced with this bloody conflict going on on your territory, we wish to assure you of our support, admittedly with our limited resources, but with our values based on concepts of Peace, active Non-Violence, Reconciliation.

With that in mind, and with the support of the “Veteran Conscripts of Algeria against the War”, we are pondering assistance to the School of Peace and a support to Gaza’s hospitals through Doctor YAYA who lives in your village.

Of course the amount will not exceed a few thousand Euros, but the Aim is above all a moral support from the heart.

And this is the purpose of this letter, which we write by mutual agreement, within the spirit of fighting for Peace.

And those who tell you that this is Utopia, we answer “yes, this is realistic Utopia !”

Actually  the Utopia of the Nightmare of War exists, why would we not believe in Utopia of Brotherhood ?

Now it is in  this same spirit for the world that we greet you like Brothers !

                             Roland Saurer and Roger Winterhalter