BARBARA WOLFFAn autobiographical pictorial narrative from the Erzgebirge, 1977 – 1980

H U T H A

In 1977, the young couple moved into an old house in the Erzgebirge.

The farmers who sold their house in HUTHA to the artists. In the last

Both dreamed of an alternative country life. It seemed to them to

10 days that they lived in „their“ house, the farmer‘s wife cooked one

be a way of escaping the GDR artist‘s life in the city with its man-of her 10 chickens every day. When all the chickens were eaten, theynerisms and limitations. They were looking for the real thing andwent to live with their children in another place...

initially found it in the old.

The artists from the city moved in.

At that time, there were still long winters with lots of snow in theErzgebirge.

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Barbara Wolff

The old house in the Erzgebirge: View of the path from the hallway.
Left - door to the kitchen, right door to the stable. The fireplace inthe foreground.

The hallway with the large natural stone slabs led from the front
through the whole house to the meadow. The rear part was the waterhouse. Here the spring gurgled day and night and also served as arefrigerator.

They whitewashed the walls with lime paint and in summer they put

The windows in the kitchen looked out onto the slope. If they wanted

meadow flowers on the windowsill.

to see who was passing by outside, they had to bend down. In winter,it was just the neighbor with the snow shovel.

2Barbara Wolff

They played at country life and wanted to live „like in the old days“.

The new residents fetched the round table from a former restaurant.

The most important thing was the stove: it wasn‘t just for heating

He chopped the wood for cooking. She prepared the food.

and cooking. A large tank kept a constant supply of hot water. Therewas also a place for baking, one for keeping food warm and one fordrying wood. They called the stove a „cooking machine“.

The round table was the center of the kitchen: alone, as a couple or

Bob Dylan was playing from the cassette recorder and there waswith friends.

wine and night-long conversations about the ways of life.

3Barbara Wolff

The new residents wanted an alternative rural life, but they did not

They used the large barn for coffee and as a playground for thefarm.

children.

1978: During the vacations, children from the city visited the oldThey played circus in the barn.

house.

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Barbara Wolff

Visitors came from the surrounding villages.

1979: Autumn came and with it again the children. They filled thehouse with their laughter.

And if the old car couldn‘t make it up the hill, they helped out.
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Or took the handcart.
Barbara Wolff

A large black car drove up and the two gentlemen checked thesleeping areas, bathrooms and the food for the children.

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Barbara Wolff

There was no bus stop in Hutha. So the women rode their mopeds orThe neighbor in the house on the left. She raised her children alone.

bicycles to work and to the shops. When they met up on the street,

Sometimes you could see her grown-up daughter‘s face behind thethey would stop for a chat.

window facing the artists‘ house.

The people of Hutha grew potatoes for their own consumption.

The sloping areas were not worthwhile for the cooperative.

The farmer above on the slope. In addition to working in the LPG, heThe neighbor down in the meadow. He came from Hamburg to Hutha

also cultivated his own fields.

in the Ore Mountains for love. He lost three fingertips in the sawmill.

7Barbara Wolff

The inn in Hutha had been closed for a long time. The innkeeper andElection Sunday 1979: The inhabitants of Hutha had dressed up. The

his wife used the former guest room as a living room, so they had

polling station was located in the former pub.

several dining tables.

The tablecloth stretched out in the corner served as a voting booth.

The women from Hutha gathered in the hallway of the old inn after

The men from Hutha folded their ballot papers, put them in the bal-their ballot.

lot box, took a seat at the pub table and drank a beer.

8Barbara Wolff

The ballot box was carried through the village.

It was quiet in the house, only the water in thekettle was humming.

Paradise was cracked.

9The little stream down in the meadow became the „receiving water“.

Barbara Wolff

The spruce trees in the ridge forest died in the sulphur air. TheThe artists from the city wanted to live creativity, but mostly theyinhabitants of Hutha No. 10 tried to revolt. But they had to give up.

had to do with the with repairing the house.

Farewell to Hutha. Last photograph from the moving truck,summer 1980.

The photographic project „HUTHA“ reflects life in the years 1977 1980 in an old house in Hutha in the Erzgebirge in the former GDR.
At that time, I moved with my boyfriend from the big city to the tiny
village to lead an alternative country life.
The black and white pictures tell of a melancholy love for my oldhouse, like a time capsule that has been broken open. I portray people from the village of Hutha, which consists of only 12 houses, andobserve the inhabitants of Hutha during their potato harvest.
During school vacations, my friend and I invited children from thecity to our old house. The children spent their vacations with us
Finally, the sulphur air also poisoned their love. In the summer of1980, the artist left Hutha alone. Much later, she found photographsof the photo lab in Hutha No. 10. (Copy from the files of the GDRState Security, photographer unknown).

away from political tutelage at children‘s meetings. They practiced
democracy. Democracy that did not actually exist in the German
Democratic Republic, even though the country called itself democratic. But paradise was broken, the spruce trees in the ridge forest
died in the sulphurous air. Ultimately, the political rebellion against
the environmental catastrophe also led to the failure of the life plan.

10Barbara Wolff