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Pastor Markus Heckert with Sally dog in his office: "Tomorrow I'll save you again, but leave me alone today"
Photo: Max Zimmermann
When we dig into our souls, we uncover something that would have been there unnoticed.
The writer Leo Tolstoy said that, and Markus Heckert tried it.
He has dug in the souls of hundreds of people;
in the souls of the old, the lonely, the losers of reunification.
Listening can help relieve the other's soul.
But some wounds, says the Protestant pastor Heckert, have not healed even after 30 years.
One day in March of this year, the pastor in the Thuringian village of Hinternah got into his Dacia small car.
He drives up the hill to the neighboring village, where a 70-year-old, Anita Kolk, died.
Behind the mountains lies Suhl, the largest city in southern Thuringia.
No other region has lost so many people since the fall of the Wall.
Over a third of the population moved away after 1991.
30 years of German unity
This article was written as part of a project by the Evangelical School of Journalism (EJS) on the topic of 30 years of German unity.
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In the almost 1,400-strong village of Hinternah, where Heckert lives, the decline became noticeable a little more slowly.
But here, too, the pastor is used much more often for funerals than for baptisms.
Last year he accompanied 16 people to their final resting place, only drizzling six children with water.
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