---
title: "Leipzig Festival of Lights 2024 | “Kraków Greets Leipzig” – Partner City Kraków"
url: "https://lichtfest.leipziger-freiheit.de/en/festival-of-lights-programme/festival-of-lights-2024/krakow-greets-leipzig-partner-city-krakow"
description: "The project “Kraków Greets Leipzig” by the partner city Kraków was one of 21 light installations with which the Leipzig Festival of Lights 2024 celebrated 35 years of the Peaceful Revolution."
language: "en"
breadcrumb: "Root > Leipzig Festival of Lights > Leipzig Festival of Lights Programme > Festival of Lights 2024 > B: Kraków grüst Leipzig – Partner City Kraków"
---

Kraków greets Leipzig

Project by the twin city of Kraków

 

Projection
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at the IntercityHotel, Tröndlinring 2

**Project by the twin city of Kraków, Polish Institute Berlin/Leipzig branch, Harald Kirschner, Leipzig**

To express their solidarity with the democracy movement in the GDR, Polish civil rights activists from the Freedom and Peace movement (Ruch Wolność i Pokój, WiP) organised a happening on 5 October 1989 in front of the GDR Cultural and Information Centre in Kraków. During a demonstration, the protesters bricked up the door of the GDR Institute in Kraków and called on people to practise for Berlin how to tear down a wall. Slogans such as “Freedom for the GDR”, “Tear down the Berlin Wall”, “Walls are falling” and “Kraków greets Leipzig” could be read on posters, graffiti and banners. Leipzig photographer Harald Kirschner documented the situation. This material is being projected onto the façade of the IntercityHotel and draws attention to the solidarity in the neighbouring country, which was directed both towards GDR citizens who had fled to Poland and towards opposition activists and those wishing to leave the GDR who wanted to shake off the communist dictatorship.

Kraków has been a twin city of the City of Leipzig since 1973.

 

*Kraków greets Leipzig* at a glance

### IntercityHotel, Tröndlinring 2

Location

### Projection

Project type

### Leipzig’s twin city Kraków

responsible

 

 

The contributors in profile
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Harald Kirschner

**Harald Kirschner**, born in 1944 in Reichenberg (now Liberec, Czechia), grew up in Altentreptow, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. From 1968 to 1973 he studied photography at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig and from 1973 to 1981 was a postgraduate assistant and university lecturer. Since 1981 he has worked as a freelance photographer in Leipzig, focusing on social documentary photography and reportage.

**Curator Bernd Karwen** began working at the Polish Institute Leipzig in 1999 after studying in Leipzig and Warsaw. There, he works on the subject areas of literature, history and politics, as well as on other cultural projects. He is also involved on a voluntary basis in the Leipzig-Kraków City Partnership Association.

**Twin city Kraków: civic pride meets royal dignity**

**Kraków** (Polish: Kraków) is an appealingly modern yet venerably tradition-conscious European metropolis. It was the capital of Poland for a long time and remains a vibrant cultural centre of Europe to this day.

In September 1973, Leipzig and Kraków signed a partnership agreement, which was renewed in 1995 under the new political conditions.

As early as 1969, a Polish Information and Cultural Centre opened in Leipzig; today, as the Polish Institute Berlin – Leipzig branch, it is based on the Markt. Leipzig has a dense network of partners – institutions and civic associations – active in the German-Polish context. At present, the focus of cooperation with Kraków is on the fields of culture and social affairs.

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