Zeitlose Jahre

Editorial team: Konstanze HelberKonstanze Helber was born in Camburg in 1954. In 1977, she was sentenced to several years in prison for fleeing the republic and was subjected to targeted dehumanisation and forced labour in Hoheneck women's prison until she was released by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1979. In 2004, after 25 years, she began to come to terms with her life story. It led her to campaign against the forgetting of GDR injustice and to speak as a contemporary witness in schools and at events. In 2019, she co-founded the association Forum für politisch verfolgte und inhaftierte Frauen der SBZ/SED-Diktatur e. V. (Forum for Politically Persecuted and Imprisoned Women of the Soviet Occupation Zone/SED Dictatorship) to give a voice to women who were imprisoned in other prisons in the GDR or subjected to repression and who previously had no representation of their interests.editorial team: Carla OttmannCarla Ottmann was born in 1946. She studied theatre studies in Leipzig and then worked at the Komische Oper Berlin. In 1978, she was arrested and sentenced to two and a half years in prison for aiding and abetting her sister's escape, 20 months of which she served in Hoheneck women's prison. There, Carla Ottmann was forced to work for the "People's Own Combine ESDA" in the production of nylon stockings, among other things. She was released in the GDR and was able to leave for West Berlin in 1981.editorial team: Birgit SchlickeBirgit Schlicke was born in Görlitz in 1969 and came into conflict with the GDR while she was still at school. As a result of her parents' application to leave the country, she had to leave the extended secondary school and was finally arrested by the State Security in 1988. After six months in pre-trial detention, she was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. In the Hoheneck women's prison, she had to sew bed linen in shifts. In November 1989, she was released following an amnesty and travelled to West Germany.