In the past decades, Europe has experienced several waves of internal migration, including displaced persons before, during and after World War II, in the 1960s when “guest workers” were invited from South Europe to the richer states, after the fall of the Iron Curtain and through conflict in the former Jugoslavia. There are, therefore, millions of older people who are “European citizens” in the sense that they have lived in several European countries, cultures and societies and who have thus collected considerable experience of “a wider Europe”. Promoting European citizens’ awareness of Europe has been one of the main objectives of European policy for many years, but prejudices and attitudes linger on, especially among those who have little or no European experience with migration and multicultural approach. Furthermore, the treasure of those older people who have experienced a multilingual and multicultural life in Europe has hitherto been under-researched. The project “European Generation Link” has, therefore, developed a web-based platform that contains recordings of people who have, during their lifetime, lived in more than one European country. The site is arranged like a real library, with individual volumes containing the “stories”. They are based on structured interviews, mainly carried out by young people, and complemented with photographs, audio files and videoclips. Visitors may search the library using a variety of search parameters, including include countries, periods, cultures and languages. This presentation will introduce some of the stories uncovered so far and a preliminary analysis of the contents of the library
