House of Hopes

A month later, this event would grow into one of the largest demonstrations in German history, drawing around one million people.

But it wasn’t just in Berlin that hope for greater participation and economic independence seemed within reach in the late 1980s: The last Soviet troops were withdrawing from Afghanistan. In China, tens of thousands of students were taking to the streets. In Namibia, free elections were held for the first time. And in South Korea, the process of coming to terms with 26 years of military dictatorship began. Around the globe, a sense is spreading that the majority could bring their governments to their senses. Greater freedom of movement and speech—but also greater participation—seems possible.

In *House of Hopes*, the audience follows in the footsteps of that era of new beginnings and embarks on a tour of the building that begins in the box office lobby and leads through staircases and foyers across the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz into the present.

The theater’s architecture becomes the setting for ten autobiographical narratives from countries around the globe. Full of hope, they explore the “Esperanza” in the campaign against Pinochet’s dictatorship, the “Speranță” for freedom following the execution of the Ceaușescus, recall the “Nadzieja” of the labor movement in Poland, and the “Omid” for a less cruel Iranian state after Khomeini’s death.

House of Hopes extends the lines of flight from the historic turning point of 1989 into a present in which the unifying power of hope is sought and up for debate: When people hope, do they simply wait, or do they make things happen?

Each House of Hopes event offers three different language tours:

• OV (for visitors who understand German and English)
• DT (for visitors who understand German)
• ENG (for visitors who understand English)