Lesung Anja Jonuleit: "Wo der Wind die Namen trägt" - ein aufrüttelnder Roman
“She had decided not to think about the past anymore: the places, the people in her homeland, and certainly not about what had happened back in that summer of 1946, when she was eight years old and everything began.”
2023. The 85-year-old Inge Sundermann reluctantly follows an invitation to a class reunion in the Lüneburg Heath. She associates a terrible guilt with the place of her childhood, which she once burdened herself with in her childhood and buried deep within. But the past now catches up with Inge in the form of the diary entries of Helga von Borcke, a woman who began chronicling the history of this idyllic landscape in the shadow of Bergen-Belsen back in 1946.
1946. Eight-year-old Inge discovers the corpse of a young woman on her way to violin lessons in the woods. A tragic process of lies, cover-ups, and inhumane crimes begins to unfold, one that will haunt Inge with full force many decades later.
The idyllic Lüneburg Heath becomes the scene of war crimes, whose perpetrators continue to live undetected within their families for decades. The new novel by Anja Jonuleit, set to be published on March 25, 2026, tells on two timelines of the dreadful events in the Lüneburg Heath and their cover-up, of old Nazi connections — and of two women (in 1946 and 2023) who are not willing to let the past lie.
An inspiring, deeply affecting novel, nourished by reality.
Anja Jonuleit, born in Bonn and raised on Lake Constance, worked for several years at the German Embassy in Rome and Damascus. She then studied Italian and English in Munich, worked as a translator and court interpreter, and began to write. Since 2007, her novels have regularly appeared on the SPIEGEL bestseller list.
She is known for her thorough research: she travels to the locations of her novels, speaks with witnesses and those affected, and incorporates their voices into her stories. Her books deal with extremism, radical ideologies, and family secrets; she tells stories of mothers, children, and loss — a theme from her family history.
Drinks will be served before the event, no break.
Book sales by the bookstore “lesb@r” and the opportunity for signing by the author.
Please use the parking lots at the festival hall.
Doors open at 6:30 PM, numbered seating. Already purchased tickets will not be refunded.