During the GDR period the Buna Werke were not just a chemical plant, they had an impact on almost all areas of life. The Haus der Freundschaft (House of Friendship), also known as Buna-Klubhaus X 50, the House of Culture in Schkopau was built in 1953 next to one of the main entrances of Buna Werke by the Soviets as a cultural centre for the Buna workers. It can be seen as a symbol for this entanglement: “The Buna Werke shaped the identity of an entire region, the House of Culture shaped the culture“ [“Das Buna-Werk [...] prägte die Identität einer ganzen Region, das Kulturhaus die Kultur”] (Thielmann 2020).
At this place it becomes evident that culture and life can’t be separated from the all-embracing toxicity. One of our interviewees still remembers a day, when she and her family were on the way to Buna-Klubhaus to a big opera show as part of the Händel festival. They arrived there, everybody was dressed-up, but outside the Klubhaus the air was dirty, an enormous industrial cloud, which they needed to pass in order to enter the concert location. An international opera-singer was shocked and asked, whether it was really there that he should sing (D, interview, 21.06.2021).
We take this socialist classicist representative building as an opportunity to ask questions about the impact of Buna Werke Schkopau and the related massive toxicity on citizens during the GDR. How did GDR citizens perceive Buna Werke Schkopau? What was working at the chemical plant like during the GDR? How did people deal with the toxicity?
To examine these questions we conducted two interviews, each with two persons from Halle (Saale) who worked at Buna Werke in the 1970s as part of their secondary school programme . Their work at Buna was part of their normal school schedule....Read more
“Large chimneys spewing carbide dust for miles, all the roofs in the area were grey, and the characteristic chemical smell that you can smell all the way into the city when the wind blows from the south.” (B, interview 1, 21.06.2021)
When asked about the first...Read more
“So [one was] always happy when one left the terrain in one piece again.” (B, interview, 21.06.2021)
The working conditions in Buna Werke were bad - long working hours, rotating shifts. Many of the jobs included very hard physical work under extreme conditions...Read more
“Contaminator and cash cow” (C, interview, 21.06.2021)
The quotation above sums up the (official and unofficial) image of the Buna Werke during the GDR era. According to our interlocutors there existed an ambiguous image , primarily as a contaminator spewing...Read more
“You didn't want to live in this chemical-polluted area for the rest of your life.” (B, interview, 21.06.2021)
It became clear that there was a general knowledge about the toxicity generated by the production at the Buna Werke, even though its full extend was...Read more
“I'm not worried about that” (B, interview, 21.06.2021)
Generally, the interviewees worry neither about the remaining toxicity, nor about long-term health damages today. Concerning the issue of long-term health damages one interviewee relativises the toxicity...Read more
“It is present in the city’s community that there are contaminated areas” (B, interview, 21.06.2021)
When asked about how, in their view, the GDR history and the toxic legacy are reflected and remembered today (in German: Aufarbeitung), our interviewees...Read more
