In 1950, a significant wish of the founder Walter Robert Corti was fulfilled at the Pestalozzi Children's Village: the first issue of the children's village magazine "Freundschaft" ("Friendship") went to print. The magazine was written, illustrated, and typeset by the children themselves. You can download the first issue in the link below.
"Our Pestalozzi village is a small international children's community. It is partially hidden behind the Appenzell hills above an old village called Trogen," wrote the French boys Georges and Gérard in an article for the magazine "Freundschaft". In 1950, a significant wish of Walter Robert Corti, the founder of the Pestalozzi Children's Village, was fulfilled with this publication. The children's village magazine was written, illustrated, and typeset by the children themselves until 1992 and was a peace-promoting publication that shared stories from life in this unique village in the Appenzell region. The editorial team, initially composed of children from eight nations and later from even more, produced a total of 125 issues.
Donation from New York
The wish for a children's village magazine was fulfilled after the New Forest School in New York donated a box of lead letters to the children's village, as Walter Robert Corti wrote in the foreword of the first issue. The magazine was a peace-promoting publication that vividly depicted life in the children's village. It reported from the houses, about leisure activities, holidays in the homeland, or with host families in Switzerland. "Freundschaft" was initially richly illustrated with linocuts, and later with woodcuts. The magazine is an expression of cultural cohesion and a symbol of solidarity after a time of war. Texts and drawings describe the daily lives of the children, their thoughts, and reflect what occupied the generation of that time.
Preservation
The first issue is physically located in the Pestalozzi Children's Village (as is the entire series until 1992), but also in the National Library in Bern. All issues of "Freundschaft" are preserved in the archives of the Pestalozzi Children's Foundation in Trogen, Switzerland, according to international museum standards. Additionally, all issues have been digitized and stored in a museum database.