tnesses in Conversation” – Anita Moeller (On All Fours to Free“Eyewidom)

Anita Moeller will give a lecture followed by a conversation about her escape through the famous "Tunnel 29," through which she (then 22 years old) reached freedom together with her husband, her then 18-month-old daughter Astrid, and 26 other people on September 14, 1962. The tunnel, in the planning and construction of which Anita Moeller’s older brother Hasso Herschel was significantly involved, had a length of about 130 meters and led from the cellar of Bernauer Straße 78 (West Berlin) to the cellar of Schönholzer Straße 7 (East Berlin).

Speaking about her reasons for escaping, she says:

"We were imprisoned. We could neither read the books, nor listen to the music, nor watch the films we wanted. We were not allowed to travel and were afraid of being imprisoned if we said the right things to the wrong people. My brother had spent years in GDR prisons only because, as a student, he had bought a few things in East Berlin and sold them in West Berlin. I did not want my child to grow up in that state.”

Anita Moeller was born on February 18, 1940, in Dresden. After being bombed out, the family fled to Austria in 1945 and returned to Dresden in 1948. In 1961, her daughter Astrid was born. After escaping from the GDR, she lived with her husband and daughter in Trier from 1963 to 1967, where her second daughter Miriam was born in 1967. From 1968 to 1971, the family lived in what is now Namibia. After returning to Germany, Anita Moeller studied architecture at the Technical University of Berlin and worked as a production designer for various TV productions from 1980 to 2007. She has been retired since 2007 and lives in Berlin.