regional customs
70,000 children write to Easter bunnies in Ostereistedt
Every year, volunteers in the village community center in Ostereistedt answer letters that children from all over Germany and abroad have sent to the Easter Bunny. photo
© Focke Strangmann/dpa
Wishes, worries, handicrafts – again tens of thousands of children from all over the world sent letters to the Easter Bunny. The young letter writers can also look forward to an answer from the Easter Bunny.
Peace in the world or going to the cinema with the Easter bunny – these are some of the wishes that children sent to the Easter bunny in Ostereistedt this year. Around 70,000 letters were received at the Easter post office in the village in Lower Saxony, as Deutsche Post announced on Thursday. At the end of the campaign, a man dressed as an Easter bunny symbolically delivered the last letters.
The children wanted chocolate eggs, sent colorful handicrafts or expressed their concerns, it was said. Ukrainian children wrote that they were grateful to live in Germany and had already made friends. Over 1000 letters from 40 different countries were received by the Easter bunny in Ostereistedt, who was christened Hanni Hase. Letters from Australia and Brazil traveled the longest distances.
The campaign has been taking place for over 40 years and aims to encourage children to write letters. In response, the Easter post office of Deutsche Post makes the children happy with an Easter-themed and colorfully designed reply letter. Tens of thousands of letters are dispatched by a team of volunteers. “With every letter I see the children’s eyes light up when they find the answer in the mailbox,” said Doris Kröger, the manager of the Osterpost branch in Ostereistedt in the Rotenburg district.
Last year, around 80,000 letters were sent to the Easter post office. In 2021, during the corona pandemic, a record number of over 100,000 children wrote to the Easter Bunny.