This ‘living library’ shares true life stories

Cologne / DPA

Dietmar is one of the bestsellers today. The youths listen spellbound as he tells them how 35 years ago he robbed a bank — because he needed money so he could marry his
girlfriend.
He almost got away with it, escaping for a whole year before he was arrested, charged and sentenced to four years in jail. He served 29 months and got parole.
“Only stupid people do something like that,” says the 60-year-old now. He was angry with himself for a long time. “In the meantime I’ve come to terms with it.”
Thanks to his friends, he found his way in life again after leaving jail.
Now he’s happy to tell people about it and let them ask questions – it’s part of a programme called the “Living Library” organized by the Catholic charity Caritas in the German city of Cologne.
People with unusual life stories volunteer themselves as “books” and others are allowed to “borrow” them and “read” them. Just like real books, the volunteers have titles, like for example, “Doubly Cursed?” “Escape from Syria” or “Born at the Front Line.”
Today the “Living Library” has come to the Robert-Wetzlar Vocational College in Bonn.
Students at the college can select “books” and talk to them in groups. The loan period is 30 minutes, if the “book” hasn’t been reserved, it can be extended and the volunteers can be “lent out” four or five times a day.
The final condition is that the “books” have to be returned mentally and physically undamaged.
“What happened to the money?” one student asked Dietmar. “I burned it,” he says. The students laugh. “Well, all right, I did get married, got the flat sorted out, bought a car,” concedes Dietmar. “I’d imagined it all being a bit more dramatic,” says 18-year-old Matea.
“You wouldn’t know it to look at him,” adds Aleyna, also 18.
The students had imagined a bank robber to look slightly different. How? They’re not sure, but definitely not with grey hair, glasses and a stripy scarf. As well as Dietmar, there are 10 other “books” at the school today. They include 54-year-old Britta, who has been blind for 10 years and has had 17 operations on her eyes.
“Everything’s quite dark now,” she says. Bernd, 63, used to be homeless. Nerges is a liberal young Muslim, Curt is a 66-year-old man who works for the Catholic Church.
Caritas consultant Sabine Kern is responsible for the project, the idea for which originated in Denmark and which she stumbled across in Vienna. She decided to adopt it for Caritas.
That was in 2013 and a year later the first “living books” were made available at a street festival. That was a test, and it worked, says Kern.
It’s now become a permanent programme and Kern has lent out 300 living books to around 800 readers in the Rhineland. They are lent out where they’re invited — at community halls, clubs, schools, markets, conferences, even to the regional parliament.
Kern researches her “books” on the internet, and finds them in clubs and news reports. And she also uses the partners who use the “books” as a potential source for new ones.
“Somebody usually know someone who’s had such-and-such an experience, or with such-and-such a story,” she says. Sometimes the events have a theme, like escape, religion or addiction.
“I always try to get the books locally,” says Kern, explaining that it makes dialogue easier.
She now has a whole databank of volunteers who are always ready to take part in the “living library.”
“We want people to meet people they would never otherwise come across,” she says.
Many people have fixed ideas or even prejudices about certain topics, they don’t know anybody affected, she says. “We want to create a space for questions that otherwise wouldn’t be acceptable to ask,” she says, adding that in everyday life there’s a lot of questions people don’t dare pose.
The “books” get their expenses, but are otherwise unpaid.
Each one has their reasons for taking part. “I found out that lots of people are afraid of encountering others, fears that are based on ignorance,” says Britta. “I want to take people’s fears away so that they can deal with them without prejudice.” She believes both sides profit.
Bernd now has his own flat. “At some point I understood that I could tell my story to others,” he said. Joern wants to warn people with his tale, while Dietmar wants to tell young people, “If you’ve got a problem, confide in somebody!”