Since the Hohenwarte dam dammed up the water of the Saale, no one has seen the little village of “Preßwitz”. Memories of the flooding of the settlement from 1938 onwards are fading. Nevertheless, the loss of home still has an impact on the resettled families to this day.

The idyllic fjord landscape of the Hohenwarte reservoir in the Thuringian Slate Mountains barely hints at the fact that the construction of the dam once cost 245 people their homes. The inhabitants of the community of Preßwitz also packed their last belongings in favor of the strategic wartime construction project. They watched as their houses, farms and gardens were dismantled, the ruins were shelled by the Wehrmacht and the deserted area gradually disappeared beneath the surface of the water. A close-knit village community dissolved and with it its traditions and customs. Four generations and 85 years later, a descendant sets out in search of what her grandmother never talked about. In a rowing boat, she seeks out the coordinates where Preßwitz is said to have been located. She is accompanied by the rumors about the “Thuringian Atlantis”, archive finds and the voices of the children and grandchildren of the families who resettled in Preßwitz, who bring the memory of Preßwitz to life with the stories and tales of their ancestors.

Voices: Johanna Geißler, Isabel Tetzner, Krunoslav Šebrek

Please find the audiowalk here: https://www.mdr.de/kultur/podcast/feature/Feature-da-lag-presswitz-schraeg-drinne-100.html