alternative forms of education
alternative lifestyles and resistance of the everydays
avant-garde, neo-avant-garde
censorship
conscientious objectors critical science
democratic opposition
emigration/exile environmental protection
ethnic movements
film
fine arts folk culture
human rights movements
independent journalism
literature and literary criticism media arts
minority movements music national movements party dissidents
peace movements philosophical/theoretical movements
popular culture
religious activism
samizdat and tamizdat
scientific criticism social movements
student movement surveillance
survivors of persecutions under authoritarian/totalitarian regimes
theatre and performing arts
underground culture
visual arts
women's movement
youth culture
applied arts objects
artifacts
cartoons & caricatures
clothing equipment
film
furniture
graphics grey literature
legal and/or financial documentation manuscripts memorabilia
music recordings
other other artworks
paintings
photos publications
sculptures video recordings voice recordings
In 1963 the painter and graphic artist Roger Loewig was arrested following his first privately organised exhibition in East-Berlin. Throughout the regime, Loewig denied socialist realism artistic forms of production, while his artworks were considered subversive. After almost one year of imprisonment, Loewig was released in the GDR with the support from the Protestant Church from West Germany. Loewig’s release on three years probation could not be prevented. It was only 1972 that the artist could leave the GDR and settled in West-Berlin. Following his death in 1997, Loewig’s private fine-arts collection was bestowed by the Roger Loewig Association. This was founded in 1998 in Frankfurt Oder. Since 2000 the fine-arts legacy of the artist is preserved by the Federal Foundation for Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship. This aims at facilitating the scientific documentation and preservation of Loewig' artistic legacy. The literary and biographical works are currently on hold at the Academy of Arts in Berlin.
The collection reflects, on the one hand, the oppositional activity of the Romanian Greek Catholic (Uniate) Church towards the communist regime, and, on the other hand, the intense surveillance and harsh repression of this Church carried out by the repressive apparatus of the communist authorities. The Romanian Greek Catholic Church Ad-hoc Collection represents the most comprehensive collection of documents, which illustrates the multilayered resistance to dictatorship of one of the most repressed religious groups in communist Romania and its vivid underground religious activity from 1948 to 1989.
The collection is an album of 24 photographs made by a KGB officer (or secret informer) about the youth protests after the self-immolation of Romas Kalanta in Kaunas in the spring of 1972. The album shows the attitude of the KGB towards the anti-Soviet event and youth protests. On the other hand, it also shows the attitude of the younger generation of Lithuanians towards the regime.