In 2013, I moved from Berlin to Leipzig and settled at the far end of Georg-Schwarz- Straße in Leutzsch, in an apartment that had stood empty for over 16 years. The building, once home to a local coal merchant family for four generations, was in a state of quiet decline. From the horse stables in the courtyard—now used for storage— to the brittle walls that shook with every passing streetcar, the place bore visible signs of past industry and everyday life. Shortly after moving in, I found old newspapers under the floorboards from 1972, which proclaimed the imminent victory of socialism. They solve as the current intro for the book dummy, and began talking with older residents. They spoke about a once- busy street of small workshops, pubs, and cinemas—a place shaped by working-class life, then slowly hollowed out in the years after German reunification. At the time, most buildings stood empty or partially collapsed; sidewalks were cordoned off, and large parts of the neighborhood felt suspended in a state of uncertainty. It seemed like all the residents vanished, they sometimes left the wohle apartments including their furniture. What started as a personal engagement with my surroundings gradually turned into a long-term photographic project. In 2013, I came across a box of unused Orwo film from the GDR era (large format 13x18 sheets, medium format and 35mm rolls, all produced in the 80ies) and began documenting every vacant or unrestored building along the 2.9-kilometer street. Over time, as the houses around me were renovated and new residents moved in, I expanded the project to include portraits of neighbors and former residents. My aim was to create a visual record of the street before its transformation erased too many of its traces. The resulting archive spans nearly a decade and reflects broader themes—urban change, memory, social loss, and continuity. Georg-Schwarz-Straße, named after a resistance fighter killed by the Nazis, has seen many waves of upheaval: industrialization, war, socialism, reunification, and now gentrification. The collapse of East German industries left a lasting vacuum here, and for many—including families like the coal merchants or people like my father, who was apolitical prisoner in the GDR—it marked a period of rupture that continues to resonate. This book is a record of that tension: between what was, what remains, and what is being overwritten. It documents a street in flux, and the people who lived through its transitions. Alongside the photographs, I wrote personal texts—diary-like reflections interwoven with historical facts, local stories, and lived experiences. My father‘s politi- cal imprisonment in the GDR and the traces of generational trauma became recurring undercurrents, mirrored in the lives and spaces I encountered. This is not a nostalgic look back, but an attempt to understand how history leaves its mark—not only in archi- ves and institutions, but in everyday routines, in the walls of old buildings, and in the emotional landscapes of those who remember.