Big wash

16 July, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Washing like grandmother used to do with a brush, washboard, tamper and homemade soap.

Visitors can experience how tedious doing laundry by hand and with simple equipment used to be. The children are also allowed to help out with the washerwomen in the museum.Before the invention of the fully automatic washing machine - it only came onto the market in Germany in 1951 for private households - washing the clothes was the most energy-consuming and time-consuming job in the household soaked from beech wood ash.

While cooking the laundry the next day, the laundry room turned into a sauna. Rubbing the laundry on the washboard, wringing out and turning the large items was particularly hard work. The laundry was then removed from the hot water into the ice-cold rinsing water. Since the washing day meant hard work for the women, the rest of the household had to be left lying around that day. So usually only warmed stew came on the table. And there was hardly any time for cooking over the next few days either: the women were too busy mending and ironing.