Reading country GDR

What significance did books have in the GDR and what remains of the "GDR reading country" today? 20 exhibition panels with texts, pictures and videos invite you on a vivid journey through the GDR as a reading country. A country whose authorities both believed in and feared the power of the written word. A country in which reading and writing were promoted at great expense, while politically undesirable literature was only accessible in libraries with a poisoned ticket and mail and travellers from the West were searched for printed material.
The exhibition tells of the stubbornness of people who did not want to be told what to read, who queued up for rare books and secretly pocketed many a coveted title from West German publishers at the Leipzig Book Fair. The exhibition panels also introduce visitors to the world of crime novels, fairy tales and science fiction, they report on literature from the Soviet Union, on the writers of socialist realism and give a glimpse into old cookery books.
The exhibition is also an incentive for young and old to open the old books after the visit in order to (re)discover the history of the GDR in the mirror of its literature.