Zeitzeuginnen Ost

In the organizer's words:

TALK ROUND
"East & West" are - even 35 years after reunification - not categorizations of the 90s, but often still current stereotypical attributions of our present. Images and judgmental opinions about "East women", for example, usually reflect little knowledge about the lives and achievements of East women. An impressive counter-strategy to this:
To make authentic, biographical life paths of positioned, committed contemporary witnesses public ... and to share them live.
Live today: SABINE MARUSCHKE and the beginnings of intercultural work in Leipzig
"We already had a "Femi Circle" in the student community in the 80s - that's what we called our progressive women's group back then.
I had no idea how much the topic of 'justice for women' would occupy me." ... reflects Sabine Maruschke, born in 1961.
Together with others, she founded the Central America Initiative Leipzig e.V. in 1990. After years of development policy work under the umbrella of the churches in the GDR, it was now possible to work independently for solidarity with people in the global South.
organizations in Latin America that campaigned for women's rights could be supported and strengthened - including an organization that campaigned for the victims of feminicides in Mexico.
In February 1990, a "Foreigners' Issues" commission was set up at the Leipzig City Round Table, in which Sabine Maruschke was involved from the very beginning. The members of the commission, who came from different backgrounds, took stock of the segregated lives of migrants in the GDR, especially workers from Mozambique, Angola and Vietnam, and developed ideas for a humane way of dealing with them after the economic collapse of the GDR. The commission led to the establishment of the "Foreigners' Representative" department of the city of Leipzig, the first of its kind in a city in the eastern federal states (today: Department for Migration and Integration). Sabine Maruschke has worked in this department since the summer of 1990, advising and supporting former contract workers, students and asylum seekers who had no lobby in the turmoil of the reunification period: "People from all over the world came to our office in the New Town Hall. We learned about their reasons for coming to Germany or wanting to stay here - immense environmental pollution in their home country, catastrophic living conditions as a result of unjust structures worldwide, human rights violations, discrimination and disregard for the dignity of women."
She worked here for the next 33 years, coordinating the Intercultural Weeks in Leipzig, among other things. "In 1990, the list of associations that worked for and with migrants fit on an A4 sheet of paper, typewritten of course. In 2015, it was a booklet with over 100 pages, also available digitally."
As a contemporary witness who has worked interactively and approached the topic from the very beginning, she talks about the beginnings of intercultural work before and after 1989 in Leipzig.
Further talk rounds Live here: Contemporary Witnesses East will take place in the coming months.
Next event: 18.10.2025 with KATHRIN DARLATT about the beginnings of the lesbian-gay community in Leipzig
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