Freedom Train recalls East Germans flight to West via Prague

The train also recalls the first demonstrations against the Communist regime in the former East Germany, Sennewald.

In autumn 1989, several thousands of East Germans who had stayed in makeshift conditions at the West German embassy in Prague, left aboard 23 trains for the West, their much-desired destination before the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Most of the trains rode through the former East German towns of Dresden, Freiberg, Karl-Marx-Stadt (before and after the Communist regime Chemnitz) and Plauen, where they were accompanied by demonstrations of dissatisfied East Germans who also wanted to escape from the Communist regime.

The Freedom Train has brought about 100 people to Prague, Sennewald said.

"To tell the truth, the trip was rather mad as we had to prepare all the exhibitions and the things we will present tomorrow," Sennewald added.

On Thursday, a set of the carriages from the era will set out to repeat the 20-year ride from Prague to Hof, in Upper Bavaria.

Sennewald said there would be a group of former fugitives from East Germany as well as young people from the generation born in 1989 and entertainers.

In all, some 150 people will take part in the "ride to the West," Sennewald said. The train will be officially started by Saxony's Minister President Stanislaw Tillich, he added.

The Freedom Train ride is organised by the Dresden association Kultur Aktiv that has prepared it for two years. The project is sponsored by various institutions, towns situated on the line Prague-Hof, the German land of Saxony, the Cultural Foundation of Saxony, the Czech-German Fund for the Future and the German Marshall Fund of the US.

The mass flight of East Germans to the West, first via Hungary and later also Czechoslovakia, was one of the events that triggered the demise of the Communist regime in Eastern Europe in 1989.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz