Every year on 9th of October we celebrate in Leipzig the LICHTFEST (“Festival of light”). It’s in memory of the great demonstration in 1989, which was the breakthrough for the peaceful revolution. This year was the 30th anniversary. Unfortunately it was cold and rainy and so it was hard to draw outside…
Everyone has a little candle light in hand
that gives the festival its name. And here is why:
At that day in 1989 came – in spite of military forces throughout the city – 70,000 people came together to demonstrate for political change. The demonstrations started alway after the peace prayer meeting in the Nikolai Church monday evening.
When the people left the Nikolai church they had candles in their hands. That symbolised in a great way the peaceful attitude of the people and was a great way to bring it on the streets.
For me peacefulness is one of the essentials of the gospel of Jesus and I will never forget a quote of a STASI officer after that day “We were prepared for everything, but not for candles and prayers!” So let’s keep that in mind and teach it the next generation.
A special highlight that evening was to draw during the recording of an interview of an eye witness. That was an initiative of the www. zeitzeugen-portal.de by the German House of History. They had a mobile studio on the market place And I got the permission to draw there.
I was so impressed by that sentence a demonstrator said to a member of the armed forces on the streets: “What are you doing here with a weapon in your hands??? What if your daughter is taking part??” And that is just 30 years ago…
