Witnesses to Living History: Jens Reich recalls the 4th of November 1989
November 4, 1989, was a great day in the history of democracy, says MDC scientist and civil rights-activist Jens Reich (75), while adding that the day itself turned out to have no real impact on things to come. November 4 was the date of the legendary mass rally at the Alexanderplatz, where nearly 30 speakers – some drowned in applause, others heavily booed – detailed their visions for a democratic renewal of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). “It was a big celebration,” Jens says. On that day he witnessed a happy opening of the public spirit and a creative celebration, and yet, “We were bards of a dying GDR.”
Here's a short clip of his account (2 minutes, in German), the link to the 9-minute video is t at the end of this text.
These are some of the recollections Jens Reich provides in an interview for the MDC’s “Witnesses to Living History” project.” The full 9-minute video, in which Jens Reich discusses the events of November 1989 and the months after the wall came down, can be seen here.
A number of events occurred in the course of the democratic renewal of the GDR, Jens says. Big demonstrations were organized, and people stormed the local headquarters of the secret police (“Staatssicherheit” or “Stasi”). Spontaneous actions took place throughout the GDR: round tables were formed to put local affairs in order – there was, says Reich, a general feeling of anarchy and grass-roots sovereignty. Nevertheless, Jens has mixed feelings as he remembers these events. The fall of the Berlin Wall was a happy day for him – “The cage finally opened!” – combined with emotions of liberation and freedom. “But all the illusions we had on November 4 would fade away.”
The Witnesses to Living History project will interview former generations of scientists to collect their accounts of how they lived and worked in Berlin-Buch, thus making the history of the Max Delbrück Center come alive. The MDC was built on the foundations of central institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR; these centers had aimed to carry out translational medical research for decades by combining patient-oriented clinical science with basic research in molecular biology. Interestingly, this important scientific site of the GDR became the model when the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg (DKFZ) was founded. It is somewhat of a historical irony that after German reunification, the DKFZ would serve as a model for the establishment of the MDC – representing a return to the Berlin-Buch concept.
In the next segment of the Witnesses to Living History project, former MDC cancer researcher Heinz Bielka (85) recalls his experiences of the day the wall came down. But first, here's the video (9 minutes, in German) with Jens Reich:
Featured Image: Mass rally at Berlin Alexanderplatz on November 4, 1989, when several hundreds of thousands people demonstrated for a democratic renewal of the GDR. Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1989-1104-437 / Settnik, Bernd / CC-BY-SA
