Commemorating the victims of the popular uprising in the GDR

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Today, the city of Chemnitz, together with the Association of Victims of Stalinism e. V. and the Kaßberg Prison Learning and Memorial Centre
e. V., the city of Chemnitz commemorated the popular uprising in the GDR in 1953.

Alongside Lord Mayor Sven Schulze, Dr Nancy Aris, Saxony’s State Commissioner for Coming to Terms with the SED Dictatorship, and Christoph Magirius, an honorary citizen of the city of Chemnitz and a key figure in the Peaceful Revolution, addressed the guests.
The commemorative event is dedicated to those who suffered political persecution in the Soviet occupation zone between 1945 and 1949 and in the subsequent GDR, as well as to all
victims of Stalinist-style dictatorships after 1945. Around 17 June 1953, strikes, mass demonstrations and protests broke out in almost all East German cities, leading to bloody clashes with the GDR security forces and being violently suppressed by the military and police.