Friends in a Cold Climate: on youth exchanges and Europe.
In 1970, the town of Velenje from former Yugoslavia took part in a youth exchange. From that moment, Velenje was part of a small circle of towns from all over Europe who where twinned with each other. Connie, an organiser from Schiedam, a Dutch town that also took part: “Everyone thought that was special. Look at Sweden and England and Germany and France: you liked meeting each other, but that was not unusual. But a group from behind the Iron Curtain, that was something, of course. Those people from Velenje, those participants had the feeling: we are now in Esslingen and in Schiedam, we Yugoslavs are free because we are now allowed to do this. But there were so many restrictions that applied there that we just thought, what is happening here?”