Dr. Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk – Scientific Advisor
For Dr. Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk, the past is not just history, but an inexhaustible source of discovery. The new scientific advisor to the DDR Museum brings not only expertise, but also a personal connection to the GDR – and a clear vision. While he is still familiarising himself with the museum's structures, he is already planning new projects to extend its reach and establish it as a place of lively debate in Berlin. His path to becoming a historian began early on, characterised by tireless curiosity and a love of writing. But he also has exciting interests outside of research – from music to travelling. In this interview, he not only provides insights into his work, but also into his personal history.
What are your tasks as a scientific advisor at the DDR Museum?
We're still a bit in the orientation phase. I have to get to know the »shop« properly first. I'm in the process of developing one or two new projects to increase the museum's appeal beyond the region. I would also like to think about anchoring the museum even more firmly as a place for debate in Berlin's urban society. But my main activity will probably be to use my expertise to support the museum's future projects and perhaps also to help develop them to some extent. Finally, as I love writing, I will also be planning one or two book projects that I would like to realise for the museum's publishing house. So, there's a lot on the horizon, but it's an evolving process and I don't want to rush into anything.
What do you particularly like about your job as a historian?
Even as a child, I felt a great desire to discover new things. The past offers me an infinite reservoir for this. For me, working in archives and libraries is a feast of joy and pleasure. My curiosity can never be satisfied here. There is actually nothing that wouldn't interest me. This is in stark contrast to the realisation that I don't actually know anything – and certainly nothing really ... But that's the fate of all scientists. I'm more of a loner, I love working alone in darkened rooms with old paper – being a historian provides an excellent basis for this. And since I like writing, books and essays, everything somehow fits together perfectly. I was able to turn my favourite hobby into a career!
Do you have a personal connection to the GDR?
Oh yes – I was born there, in East Berlin in 1967, grew up on Müggelsee in Friedrichshagen and lived there until the end of the 1980s, before I »moved« to Prenzlauer Berg, where I »took« a vacant flat. That's how it was back then, Angela Merkel also »got« her first flat in Prenzlauer Berg.
I actually grew up quite unspectacularly (apart from bad illnesses) and believed in GDR socialism until I was 14 or 15. That's how I was brought up. Then I got a few dents, very unpleasant ones that lasted for many, many years, and I developed a greater distance to the SED state. I was a bricklayer and porter as a teenager and young man, not exactly my dream jobs, but they gave me a lot for my life. At the age of 19, I published my first scientific essay as a porter, which I'm still proud of today, more than anything else I've done scientifically. Nobody had told me how to do it, I taught myself, obtained archival material from various countries and wrote a small, clumsy sketch about a scientist from the 19th century. It was only after the freedom revolution of 1989, which is burnt into my political DNA, also as »my revolution«, that I was able to study. When the GDR came to an end, I didn't shed a tear for it, but was simply glad that it was over and that I was young enough to finally be able to take off, which I did.
If you could take something from the DDR Museum's collection home with you, what would it be?
The prison door.
What did you want to be when you were little?
Pyrotechnician, archaeologist, officer (the wish became my destiny) and then historian from the age of 15.
What interests do you have outside of work?
Everything I do has to do with my hobby of being a historian. But ok, I'm quite a music nerd, have a big collection, read a lot about it, but rarely go to concerts anymore because I've been suffering from MECFS for 11 years, which severely limits my strength and range of movement. I read a lot, of course, and there's nothing that doesn't interest me, which is rubbish because I never feel like I've got anywhere. The mountain of unfinished business never gets the slightest bit smaller. I only feel a certain sense of relief when I'm travelling abroad.
If you had an extra hour a day, what would you do with it?
I'm not one of those people who complain about not having enough time. My life is pretty self-determined, very free – in other words, very privileged. So I wouldn't do anything differently. I would like to be healthy, because then I could do things that I haven't been able to do for many years.
Which historical figure has left a lasting impression on you and why??
Many personalities have made an impression on me, and I have been reading biographies non-stop since my youth. Politically, Gerd »Poppoff« Poppe, my friend of 35 years, had the strongest and deepest influence on me. In the GDR, he was one of the most prominent figures in the opposition to the SED state since the 1960s, and then co-founded the non-denominational »Initiative for Peace and Human Rights« in 1985/86. He was one of the masterminds behind the freedom revolution of 1989! And he was one of the very few leading members of the opposition without church affiliation or church protection. From 1990 onwards, he was active worldwide in matters of human rights and democracy – he never allowed himself to be bent, was never an opportunist, always stood up for freedom and lived a liberal life. I look up to him and learnt so much from him, above all to be steadfast and free.
If time travel were possible, which time would you choose and why?
I would like to travel back to 1918 and meet my Ukrainian grandfather, who fought for a free and independent Ukraine and was sentenced to death for it in 1921. His name was Ilko Kowalczuk. Shortly before the planned execution, he was freed with others and taken out of the country. When my father Ilko Bohdan Kowalczuk was born in 1934, his father was no longer alive. He had died a few months earlier in a railway accident, just as my father was fatally run over by a car in 1992. My wife therefore didn't want any of our four children to be called Ilko ... I would like to write a book about the two Ilkos, to reconstruct their life story, because there is a lot of European history in it. When Ukraine has won the war, I will go there again and do some research. Ukraine has been a bit of a home for me all my life.
If you could choose one superpower, what would it be and why?
I would like to be invisible so that I can put an end to the evil of this world.
