Hoyerweda is a relatively small, once industrial town in Saxony, then a pearl of the industralization progress of the former GDR. Brigitte Reimann made the town famous as she, alongside with other authors at the time, went there and wrote several literary imbued reports that were published in the media at the time. I personally keep at high esteem such reports, because put aside the ideological passion, it turned the interest on people and their story, introducing a new style of journalism that nurtured a lot my own writing. It is a genre that deserves more consideration and appreciation, in my opinion.
Once communism was dismantled and Germany reunited, Hoyerweda, as many other densely industrialized places, went through several crisis: identity but especially economic crisis. Actually those two crisis, and many other who followed, were intermingled and outsourced each other. In 1991, several riots ignited by far right individuals and entities put the relatively unknown city - including within Germany - on a newly set up map of extremism and xenophobia, often afterwards associated with this part of the country - Saxony.
Grit Lemke, author, documentarist and film director, went back in time and collected various testimonies of people born and bred, or settling in Hoyerweda at certain moments of time, including former immigrants from ´friendly´ communist countries like Vietnam and Angola. Structured on historical stages, she collected an impressive amount of oral histories shedding light not only on the personal experiences, but in perspective, offers a global outlook on German history, particularly during the communist times.
For historians of recent history with a focus on the history of mentalities, this method although may be lengthly in time - including as establishing a level of trust with the subjects is needed in advance of starting the project - and requiring a considerable amount of resources, it is one of the best, in my opinion, for illustrating sudden social and political changes. Through personal testimonies the attentive and experienced eye of the researcher can figure out so many small details that may further help to reconstruct an era, one small piece at a time.
Kinder von Hoy is a recommended read to anyone looking to understand communist and post-communist Germany, by hearing the voices of first hand subjects of history. I would continue this year to explore more about this specific history that decades after the unification remains very much present in the structure of mentalities in the former Eastern but also Western Germany.
Rating: 5 stars
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