Monika Lazar

If, like me, you lived in the southern part of Leipzig, you experienced all kinds of pollution. You could see, smell and taste it. We had a lot of industry here. The lakes that are now perfect for swimming were open-cast lignite mines back then. Everything was much dirtier than it is today. The pollution here was very bad. I then got involved in a small environmental initiative in the south. There was a campaign called “One Mark for Espenhain*)” … others may have already mentioned this … and we collected signatures. And because that wasn’t allowed in the GDR, we always donated one mark and the signature was for the donation of one GDR mark, so to speak, to simply collect money to shut down the plant
*) VEB Kombinat Espenhain was a company for the extraction and processing of brown coal south of Leipzig.

As I was studying in Leipzig, the commercial college was around the university at the time, we also used rooms there, i.e. we were always in the city centre and were also involved in the prayers for peace in the Nikolaikirche. And they were always on Mondays at 5 pm – and the funny thing was that there were always party meetings on Monday afternoons. So the SED group XY met there, i.e. the lectures and seminars only lasted until 4 pm on Mondays. Then some went to their SED group and the others had the day off. That was very practical and that’s why I attended the peace prayers as a normal participant in 1988/1989. I didn’t take part in the “first attempts at Monday demonstrations” at the beginning of September because I was on holiday. But from around 20 September, I was also a regular at the Monday demonstrations.

The entire interview plus photo collection will be available in the Open Feminist Democracy Archive | OfemDA, which is currently being created. See here