Glasfaeden vs Max Mannheimer

Glasfäden is an interactive comic telling the stories of Vietnamese contract workers in East Germany. It was developed in close cooperation with the Viet-German community. It is the tale of two women from Chemnitz, Germany. The mother came to the GDR from Hanoi, Vietnam, via the socialist workers aid program. After the peaceful revolution in 1989, she was stranded in a country that was undergoing radical change. Her daughter was born into a family that was denied integration into society on many levels. Glasfäden builds on interviews with former contract workers and their descendants from Chemnitz and the surrounding area, which were woven into a narrative. Credits: Technical direction, code: Lisley Viraphong Code: Christian Knapp Graphics: Brian Main Production and game design: Ben "skodone" Wahl Audio: Ben "skodone" Wahl Narrative design: Georg Hobmeier Editing: Dr. Frauke Wetzel, Ngọc Bích Trần Project management now and ASA-FF: Dr. Frauke Wetzel Editorial development/interview guidance: Vũ Vân Phạm Photographers Chemnitz: Fabian Thüroff, Isabell Scheithauer Translation Vietnamese: Ngân Neumann Booklet: Author: Ngọc Bích Trần Editors: Dr. Frauke Wetzel, Vũ Vân Phạm, Ngọc Bích Trần Glasfäden is a project by: The project was realized via the project neue unentd_ckte narrative 2025 of the club ASA-FF (Chemnitz, Germany). It is part of the piece “So glücklich, dass du Angst bekommst“ of the puppet-theater Chemnitz. Partners and collaborators are: Die Theater Chemnitz, DOMiD, Causa Creations, Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig, Lehrstuhl Humangeografie und Interkulturelle Pädagogik of the TU Chemnitz. Funding partners: This app was funded by a project of ASA-FF e.V. and the Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung, Programm Jugend erinnert and the funding of the fond Soziokultur of the comission of the Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (BKM) NEUSTART KULTUR.

We stand in Max Mannheimer’s studio. From here we can delve into the chapters of his life via his pictures: his childhood in Nový Jičín in Czechoslovakia, the time of the commencing persecution and deportation by the national socialists, the imprisonment in different concentration camps and his life after the Second World War in Germany. In engaging images the visual novel tells his life story interactively. The players can comprehend his decisions, solve small challenges to advance and collect memories on the way which lead to further information. Once his whole life has been played the contemporary witness Max Mannheimer can be actually heard. The game was developed and realised by the Max Mannheimer Study Centre in Dachau together with the renowned game studio paintbucket games and the cartoon artist Greta von Richthofen. The project was funded by the foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ Foundation) as part of the line of funding [re]create digital history within the funding programme Young People Remember International, financed with resources from the German Foreign Office.