GHIL hosted an exhibition from October 2014 until February 2015

The exhibition was organized around four themes, which also featured in the Symposium discussions:

• the intersection of biographical and historical change (“Generations”);

• the role of the past in the present (“Representation of East German History”);

• the meaning of being from East Germany (“East German Identity”); and finally

• memories of the night the Berlin Wall was opened, and subsequent anniversaries of that event (“November 9th”).

The exhibition consisted of several largescale panels dedicated to the four themes above. Each panel contained archive images and text based on Molly Andrew's research. They were designed by Stefan Walter.

The exhibition also contained multimedia content in the form of a 10-minute long video as well as MP3 sound files from the archives. The video was based on the theme of November 9th and contained extracts of interviews held in 1992 and 2012 with fourteen East German dissidents. The video shows archival footage of the interviewees, as well as of Berlin during this monumantal time of the falling of the wall in 1989. The video can be requested by contacting Molly Andrews (M.Andrews@uel.ac.uk) and stating your interest.

The audio files contained extracts from interviews conducted by Molly Andrews, which are now housed at the Robert Havemann Gesellschaft Archive in Berlin. All images used in the exhibition and video were from the archives of the Robert Havemann Gesellschaft, except for the colour portraits by Vaughn Melzner. For a closer look at the exhibition and symposium watch our short documentary video (click image on the right) made by the University of East London.

You can find more information online at:

Robert Havemann Gesellschaft Archive for all materials pertaining to this longitudinal project

Molly Andrews to request the exhibition video

Vaughn Melzner Photography

Stefan Walter Grafik

Barbara Droth Video and Research