Documentation and Interview Project on the GDR History Museum in the Perleberg Documentation Centre

Completed documentation and interview project

Project start: February 2020
Projekt leader: Dr. Irmgard Zündorf  (ZZF Potsdam)
Public History-Team: Josephine Eckert, Thomas Köhler, Freya Ziegelitz, Sophie Lutz
Film team: Malte Blum, Mathis Giebeler

The project was funded by the Beauftragte des Landes Brandenburg zur Aufarbeitung der Folgen der kommunistischen Diktatur.

Opened in 2006, the GDR History Museum in the Documentation Centre in the small town of Perleberg in Brandenburg offers a wealth of illustrative material from and about the GDR. Gisela and Hans-Peter Freimark (deceased 4 October 2020) began collecting objects as early as the 1980s to document the political system but also everyday life in the GDR. In particular, the Freimarks' oppositional engagement, who as pastors and community helpers in the GDR, resolutely campaigned for peace and disarmament and thus opposed the SED, is depicted in the exhibition with numerous photos and objects.

Four students of the Master Public History programme (FU Berlin/ZZF Potsdam) and a two-person film team from the TH Ostwestfalen-Lippe preserved and digitised the unique history of the GDR History Museum in the project. They were supported by Irmgard Zündorf, head of the department "Public History" at the ZZF. One focus of the work was the biography of Hans-Peter and Gisela Freimark. The project's primary goal was to preserve the historical site and its extensive and unique exhibition. In the future, visitors to the documentation centre should have the opportunity to take part in a digitised guided tour of the exhibition. In a second part of the project, a tablet tour was to be developed with the students.