Report by Ms. Evelyn Kamissek, The City of Hannover, Germany
On Friday, August 19, a ginkgo sapling was planted in the palace garden of the Wilhelm Busch Museum as part of the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the twinning between Bristol and Hannover. The seed for this tree was given to Hannover by its twin city of Hiroshima in 2014 and comes from a ginkgo tree that survived the atomic bombing in 1945.
Belit Onay, Lord Mayor of Hanover, and Asher Craig, Deputy Mayor of Bristol, also a member of Mayors for Peace, jointly planted the ginkgo tree in the ground in Hannover’s Palais Garden as a sign of reconciliation, solidarity and peace, as Bristol was Hannover’s first twinning city, established in 1947 after the Second World War, and so peace work plays a central role in twinning. The Hannover-Bristol Society and the Bristol Hannover Council were also present. The planting of the Ginkgo tree was the prelude to the celebration with the delegation from Bristol, which visited Hannover in August.
Photo: courtesy of the City of Hannover