PM – “zusammen.HALT” Dresden project on GDR remembrance culture funded by “Jugend erinnert”!

Gedenkstätte Bautzner Straße Memorial Dresden and Kultur Aktiv provide young people with an understanding of life in the GDR system

In a time of strong social polarisation, the desire for cohesion is growing. How can our democracy meet this desire without shaking its own foundations, which include plurality and individual freedom? “Maybe you stop for a moment when you read our project title,” says Uljana Sieber, director of the Bautzner Straße Memorial from Dresden. “zusammen.HALT” – how much togetherness is desirable, where is the freedom of the other restricted? To sensitise people to this difficult balancing act, it is worth taking a look at our history. “We want to show young people in particular how attempts were made in a socialist dictatorship to create cohesion through coercion.

For this purpose, the Bautzner Straße Memorial Centre, together with the Kultur Aktiv association, has developed the project “zusammen.HALT”, which is now one of seven projects in Saxony funded by the federal programme “Jugend erinnert” to come to terms with the injustices of the GDR. Innovative methods are used to specifically address young people, including citizen journalism, role play, mail art, slam and an app that anchors selected project results in the urban space.

zusammen.HALT” works with many local actors and contemporary witnesses, but also with other partners from Saxony and the renowned organisations “European Solidarity Centre” (Gdańsk, Poland) and “Post Bellum” (Prague, Czech Republic). “This way we can bring our international perspective to the table,” says Simon Wolf, managing director of Kultur Aktiv and the impetus behind the project. “The GDR was part of the ‘Eastern Bloc’, the ‘Wende’ part of a pan-European transformation,” Wolf continues. The exchange on an international level about social cohesion in dictatorships and democracies promises additional insights, especially against the background of current authoritarian tendencies in some (Eastern) European countries.

The project “zusammen.HALT” is run by the Bautzner Straße Memorial and in cooperation with Kultur Aktiv. It is funded by the federal programme “Jugend erinnert” to come to terms with the injustices of the GDR and will run until the end of 2023.

Further information on funding through “Jugend erinnert”: Pressemitteilung vom 22.07.2021, Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung