The idea of the creation of the association appeared in the autumn of 2005 after a successful trip to Smolensk and Katyn youth of two Poznań schools: V High School Klaudyna Potocka and Dębinka Junior High School. The first of the schools has already had extensive contacts with schools in the East (e.g. in Moscow, Minsk, Vilnius and St. Petersburg).

However, the cooperation of the high school with the Katyn Family and – tireless in seeking agreement and cooperation with the Russian side – Wincenty Dowojna turned out to be particularly important. V LO undertook the implementation of the project “Memory of the past as an opportunity for the future” and proposed participation in General School No. 8 in Smolensk. The activities concerned the history of both nations and countries – such arrangements were adopted and implemented during the Polish youth trip to Smolensk and Katyn in 2005. This project was patronized by the Vice President of Poznań Maciej Frankiewicz and Deputy Mayor Smoleńska Paweł Szwed. No previous cooperation had such a solemn inauguration and none of them was of such great importance, because the students of two Poznań schools were invited not only by the youth of the Smolensk school, but also took part in the celebrations of the Smolensk Days and the Meeting of Youth Partner Schools from Europe. However, the most important event and experience for the youth was the arrival at the Polish War Cemetery in Katyn. Participation in the mass specially celebrated for our group by Father Ptolemy, a Polish Franciscan from Smolensk, lighting candles under the tablets of murdered Wielkopolans, laying flowers and ringing the bell from the underground – all this made the experience extremely deep for young people. The more valuable that the murdered officers are also remembered by students of the Smolensk school who come there with their teachers to light candles.

The trip of the Poznań youth to Katyn showed how important it is to consolidate the memory of the national past, but also how it is possible to permanently build normal contacts between young people who, while respecting the past, want to build the future.

Soon, it turned out that there were more schools that established contacts with towns nearby other places of martyrdom of Poles in the East, so we decided that we should associate and coordinate our activities. And so in the spring of 2006, the founding group registered the MEMORAMUS Association for Cooperation with the East in court. The idea of our activity is to save the memory of the fate of Poles in the East during World War II, as well as mutual contacts of young people from Poland and the countries of the former Soviet Union. The association was created by members of the Poznań Katyn Family, Siberians, as well as principals, teachers and students of seven Poznań schools. Wincenty Dowojna, son of a Polish Army officer murdered in Katyn, is the president of MEMORAMUS and, above all, the inspirer of our activity. Our intention then was the annual trip of a group of Greater Poland youth to Katyn as a symbol of the greatest victim of the Polish nation in the East. We manage to achieve this intention successfully, because this year the fourth March of Remembrance took place in Katyn. The second area of activity are permanent contacts of young people with members of the Katyn Family and the Union of Siberians; in this way, bond and respect for the generation of people most cruelly experienced by Soviet totalitarianism are formed.