School workshop for the twin towns of Hof and Plauen

It has now become a nice habit for the twin towns of Hof and Plauen to organize an annual school workshop with young people from both towns. This year, the Plauen town hall was the venue.

Pupils from the Diesterweg-Gymnasium and Lessing-Gymnasium in Plauen took part, as did a class from the FOS/BOS in Hof with Matthias Kolb as a teacher.

Alina Schulz and Ron Heckler from the "Deutsche Gesellschaft e.V." spoke to the almost 60 pupils on the topic of "Between ballot papers and sham elections". The young people also got actively involved: In group work, they designed posters about life in the GDR and then presented their research findings to the plenary session.

Finally, the two contemporary witnesses Diana Zierold and Thomas Huscher reported on their childhood and youth in the GDR - how they lived and what contact they had with the state power of the GDR. Both had also helped to uncover the election fraud in Plauen. The pupils took the opportunity to ask questions and talk to the contemporary witnesses.

"Our thanks go above all to the Deutsche Gesellschaft from Berlin, whose financial support has made this educational program possible for many years now," said Jürgen Stader from the city of Hof.