Prayer in a Minor Key

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The heart-wrenching elegy reverberated from the pink columns and the candy-colored vault, somehow evincing sorrow and hope at the same time. The soaring notes of the chamber orchestra and the rich tones of the choir and soloists rendered the score of Norwegian composer Ståle Kleiberg’s “Requiem for the Victims of Nazi Persecution” a prayer in a minor key. The lyrics told of the sufferings of the Jews, the Gypsies, and the gay men who were targeted by the Nazi regime; the music told of much more. My goose-bumps got goose-bumps.

This was a Monday memorial peace concert, held in the Nikolai Church at the center of old Leipzig. This church, relatively understated on the outside, a baroque fantasy inside, is more that it first appears; indeed, it was the epicenter of the events that eventually led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Here, a small group of peace-activists began holding meetings in 1982, after having moved from a small church on the outskirts of town. This group developed into the “Swords to Ploughshares” peace movement, which was instrumental in leading the first anti-government protest on September 4, 1989, when the crowds started chanting “We want to leave!” and “We are staying here!” These may seem contradictory desires, but both were comments on a system that had lost legitimacy in the eyes of those who had gathered at the church. Some wanted the right to emigrate, others still hoped to reform from within. All found the current state of affairs unacceptable, so could find common cause. By October 7, the fortieth anniversary of the GDR, the prayer-protests had grown to such size and intensity that the police began to use brute force against the demonstrators. Remarkably, this crackdown did not deter the more than 70,000 marchers, carrying candles of peace, who gathered in the church and the surrounding streets just two days later. The police, faced with a crowd they never anticipated, were at a loss on how to handle the situation. So they did nothing. The peace march which radiated from Nikolai Church that night of October 9, 1989 unfolded without a single shot being fired. And it became a model for the protests gaining momentum in Berlin.

A replica of one of the pink columns, topped with a wild splay of green, from the interior of the Nikolai has been erected in the plaza. This is to show that what had begun inside the church, the small gatherings of committed peace activists, had been brought out into the open. Colored lights embedded in the grey cobblestones represent the individuals who stood up to make a difference. And each Monday a prayer service or concert is held in honor of the events - because you can never stop striving for peace.

As the Requiem ended on a still note of cautious hope, the 6 o’clock church bells began to peal. Another prayer, it seemed.

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