1989: 19 years old; single, until May a dietician in Waldenburg, from September a theology student in Leipzig; 2009: Dr theol. at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Leipzig
I didn’t do my A-levels, I wasn’t allowed to do them because I wasn’t in the FDJ. I come from a Christian family, as they say. I was top of my class, got all A’s. And then our headmaster told me that my lack of socialist commitment meant I couldn’t do it. Therefore no A-levels. But I already realised at this point, around the eighth grade, that I wanted to study theology. Which seemed like the freest thing to do. […]
At the end of September – there were already more than 10,000 people demonstrating – I joined two fellow students from the Nikolaikirche in this stream of people. Before it started, we stood and chatted. It was a nice atmosphere. And then people were singing and shouting freedom. We then lifted each other up to look over the crowd to see how many people there were… That still touches me incredibly today. I sat on the shoulders of the others, saw how many people there were shouting: We are the people! That really blew me away. I was so moved by it, because it came from a primal source. We want to be free. We no longer want this coercion, this dictatorship. We don’t want that any more. And somehow it also sounded like that to me: We are human beings. We want to be completely human. And then I slipped off those shoulders and sat there on Augustusplatz, crying and thinking that I couldn’t stop crying. And when I think about it today, it’s a memory that is so central to me. Then I have the feeling that – when it comes to people or politics – I somehow never give up completely; that there can be change.
Read more: in „Mother, don’t worry. Everything is fine here. Everyday life from 1989“. Publication of Frauenkultur Leipzig, 2009; 2nd edition in 2021. click here->