With a new app, those interested can now follow in the footsteps of the writer Stefan Heym (1913-2001) in Chemnitz. The "HeymTour" comprises 13 stops. These include the house on Kaßberg, where he lived with his family, the grammar school he attended as a teenager and had to leave shortly before graduating, and the Jewish cemetery, where some of his ancestors are buried. Heym reportedly visited the cemetery for the last time in 2001, just a few months before his death. He himself is buried in Berlin.
Heym was born Helmut Flieg in Chemnitz in 1913 and grew up in a German-Jewish family. He fled from the National Socialists to the USA and returned to the GDR in 1952. There he became an important voice in oppositional literature and is one of the most important authors in post-war German history. He was also politically active in reunified Germany. He is known for novels such as "Five Days in June" about the popular uprising in the GDR in 1953, "Schwarzenberg" and "The King David Report".
Heym is an honorary citizen of Chemnitz. At the Tietz Cultural Center, the Stefan Heym Forum provides information about his life and work in words and pictures. The centerpiece is his working library, comprising several thousand volumes, including original furniture from his former study in Berlin-Grünau.
