In numerous letters, a grandfather writes to his granddaughter about student life in Berlin in the 1950s, when the city was divided by the Allies but not yet separated by a wall. He tells of his enrolment at the Humboldt University of Berlin in what was then the Soviet sector, of a revitalised youth after the end of the war. On the other side of the city, border cinemas and dance evenings in jazz clubs beckoned. The grandfather also talks about the difficult living conditions: His accommodation in six-bed rooms in various student halls of residence and how he secretly earns West Marks with a friend's borrowed student ID card. In the West, he often visits family friends at weekends, who see coffee and cake as social aid for the Eastern sector.
He brings a jar of mustard with him as a gift, because it is cheap in the East. However, the increasing restrictions imposed by the GDR government, especially at university, eventually encouraged him, like many other students, to flee to West Germany. As part of her final thesis at the Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin, Luise Bornkessel translated her grandfather's letters into drawings that illustrate the period between the end of the war and the construction of the Berlin Wall. Her grandfather's experiences from the 1950s come to life in the colourful drawings. Illustrations in black and white mark the change from the past to the present. The grandfather's student life and that of the author meet in the shared world of images, linked by recurring places, dancing and a bicycle.

mein 4/tel Stadtmagazine Berlin, 2020