On Thursday, 5 November at 6.00 pm, the Adult Education Centre is hosting a lecture on the healthcare system of the former GDR in the ‘Ideenreich’ lecture theatre at the University Library, Straße der Nationen 33. Under the title ‘Closed Venereology Wards in the former Karl-Marx-Stadt district’, historian Konstantin Wiesinger will speak about these isolated hospital wards in the former GDR and explore the question of what really happened in these wards.
Attendance is free of charge. You can register online via the event link or by emailing info(at)vhs-chemnitz.de.
They were runaways or so-called ‘loiterers’ – young women and girls aged 12 and over whose behaviour and lifestyle were not welcome in the socialist GDR. As they had generally done nothing illegal, they could not be imprisoned. Nevertheless, in order to punish and discipline them, the girls and women were forcibly admitted under the pretext of having a contagious sexually transmitted disease. The young women were wrongfully isolated for weeks on end in the so-called ‘closed venereological wards’. Deprived of their rights and defenceless, they were subjected to arbitrary treatment, humiliation and severe abuse. Many of those affected suffered lasting physical and psychological damage.
Unlike the ‘venereological wards’ in cities such as Halle or Leipzig, the wards in other locations, such as the former district of Karl-Marx-Stadt, had previously been little studied. Recent research findings are now available on this subject as well. Konstantin Wiesinger, a historian and research assistant at the Kaßberg Prison Learning and Memorial Centre, will present these findings in his lecture.
The event is a collaboration between Chemnitz Adult Education Centre and the Kaßberg Prison Learning and Memorial Centre e. V., the Institute of Political Science at Chemnitz University of Technology – with the kind support of the Saxon State Commissioner for the reappraisal of the SED dictatorship and funded by the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship.
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