As part of the "Democracy" project week, pupils from the Georg Büchner School took part in an interactive reading at the Nieder-Roden public library. Actress and author Maja Nielsen read from her current young adult novel "Der Tunnelbauer". The book is based on a true story and focuses on the legendary tunnel escapes from the GDR. Maja Nielsen tells the gripping life story of the tunneller and escape helper Joachim Neumann. He was part of a group of student escape helpers led by Wolfgang Fuchs. In 1964, over the course of several months, a tunnel was built starting from a bakery in East Berlin, later known as "Tunnel 57". Between 3 and 4 October 1964, 57 people were able to flee to West Berlin through this tunnel. The pupils who attended the reading belong to a generation that did not experience the GDR and the fall of the Wall in 1989. It may be hard for them to imagine that people in search of freedom and the desire to live in a democratic state made plans to flee. By fleeing, often under the most adventurous conditions, these people were always risking their lives. Not all of them arrived in West Germany, many were betrayed and imprisoned, many were killed while trying to escape. The young audience listened with interest to the impressive text passages and Maja Nielsen's explanations of German-German history. During and after the reading, the pupils made extensive use of the opportunity to ask questions and quickly entered into a lively dialogue with the author.
