Pathway of experience
How do you get 8,000 people to Neumarkt, without the Internet?
“I think that was a general feeling I had at the time anyway: nothing can happen to me.”
Johanna Kalex (formerly Ebischbach) was 17 years old when she came back from a visit to Poland with an idea. She had already refused to take part in pre-military training and had managed to convince almost all of her classmates at the technical college for nursing staff to also refuse in writing.
However, taking a stand against the GDR regime as an individual was not without danger: Johanna was summoned to individual meetings with the school management and the State Security and was ultimately excluded from training.
Would you risk your career to express your political opinion?
They needed a less risky way to express their opinion. Johanna drafted a flyer calling for people to gather at the ruins of the Frauenkirche on February 13, 1982, the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. They placed candles and flowers there and sang “We shall overcome”.
“For Dresden, the campaign was the first time that people outside the state and the church had said that we think it's garbage with this whole armament and this whole scam.”
In the end, 8,000 people gathered at the Frauenkirche. It was one of the largest actions of the peace movement in the GDR, which paved the way for the “swords to plowshares” movement in the 1980s. This ultimately led to the Monday Demonstrations, which developed into political events critical of the system. The Monday prayers in Dresden, Leipzig and Plauen brought the protest to the streets and into society. In doing so, they heralded the end of the GDR.
The Frauenkirche contains many stories of very different women. Hundreds of them are interwoven in the “Lifelines” tapestry.
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