Anna Funder 's Investigative Account Of The Traumas Experienced During The Totalitarian Regimes

East Germany, its demise relayed through the mass media of recent history, has in popular consciousness been posited as negative, a corrupt bulwark of the last dying days of Communism in Eastern Europe, barren and silent. The other Germany to its West, its citizens free, was striding confidently ahead into the millennium. Recent cinema has sought to examine re-unification, the Wolfgang Becker film Goodbye Lenin! (2003) a recent example of such an investigation into the past through cinema. In this essay I will look at the film and the narrative techniques it uses, probing whether it portrays the East German nation as positive or

The Book Stasiland uses the interviews with victims and perpetrators to inform the reader on life in East Germany. To some extent, Anna Funder does paint a black a white picture of her views, separating the victims from the perpetrators. As she despises the GDR/Stasi, Funder still acknowledges that many of the officials were just doing what was told and were reluctant to react, in fear of falling under the stasis harsh rules. Despite this, many of the officials were strong believers in the system, and do not regret life damaged due to their job. The Stories of Miriam, Julia and Frau Paul do highlight how the Stasi’s tough rules, may devastate ones life and Funder recognizes this by sympathizing for the victims. By seeing the effect the

During the Holocaust, over six million Jewish people were murdered at the hands of the Nazis, and even those who survived went through horrifying ordeals that they would never forget. In Night, a memoir by Elie Wiesel, cruelty has a major impact on the theme of man’s inhumanity to man by showing how the Nazis treat Jewish prisoners during this time in history, and how they act as though they are not even human beings. This cruelty not only shapes the lesson being taught, but is a substantial factor in the purpose of Elie Wiesel writing this memoir. The first example of cruelty and its effects on theme in Night comes from when Elie and his family are being loaded along with seventy-six other people into a small cattle car: “‘There are eighty

Funder’s use of symbolism in order to explore themes relevant to her own personal struggle with finding comfort and security within the former GDR is a concept central to Stasiland. The author’s more abstract use of darkness enables Funder to draw parallels between her own difficulty living in the former GDR and those who endured the true terror of the Stasi Regime, particularly in the retelling of Miriam Weber’s attempted escape to West Berlin. ‘It was dark...’ on the Eastern side of the Wall, and ‘...in the west the neon shone.’ West Berlin is painted as a safe haven, away from the dangerous and frightening ‘dark’ GDR.

In his memoir “Night”, Elie Wiesel gives his account of events that took place during the holocaust. Historical records confirm that the holocaust was an undesirable experience for the victims who had to go through physical torture. In his memoir, Wiesel gives gruesome accounts of the different threats prisoners faced at the Nazi concentration camp. Clearly, the psychological threats seemed to wear the prisoners down more than the physical ones, nevertheless, the prisoners adopted physical unresponsiveness and emotional numbness to protect themselves from both threats, however, Wiesel carefully selected the two execution scenes to strengthen the pathos of his memoir, and to show that sometimes even emotional numbness fails to shield one from

Limitations exist amongst her interpretation of East Germany narrowing the audience that Funder attempts to permeate with obscure knowledge stored in the minds of endless victims. The subjective thoughts presented put a taint on the knowledge received, one can only consider her truth with a level of exactness if they too were raised in similar conditions as Funder. Therefore it provides the ability to compare the lifestyle you consider worthy of human activity with the occurrences in East Germany, whilst allowing perspective to be manipulated by experience in the environment Funder observes. The inclusion of judgements and conclusions provides us to interpret the situation further, due to her acknowledgement that we should not necessarily believe her – “You know they want to stop thinking about the past. They want to pretend it all didn’t happen”. Funder’s lack of experience prior to her journey makes her understanding of the past narrow. She is intent on the idea that revealing and using your past to create a future is necessary. The GDR controls the associated people to this day, without an appropriate explanation of the happenings it has left them with the inability to piece together the numerous aspects embedded in their thoughts. The missing parts dominate these

Your memoir, Night, drastically changed my view on the world; more specifically, I now sympathize more with individuals who are experiencing a struggle of any kind. This is a result of the brutal details that forced you to create a vivid image of the situation at hand. Before reading Night, I never truly took the time to imagine what it would be like to be in these tragic situations. Therefore, I would like to thank you for bringing this inhumane flaw I possessed to light. The first account of me realizing this flaw, occurred because of the Nazis’ brutality.

The aim of this book review is to analyze Night, the autobiographical account of Elie Wiesel’s horrifying experiences in the German concentration camps. Wiesel recounted a traumatic time in his life with the goal of never allowing people to forget the tragedy others had to suffer through. A key theme introduced in Night is that these devastating experiences shifted the victim 's view of life. By providing a summary, critique, and the credentials of the author Elie Wiesel, this overview of Night will reveal that the heartbreaking events of the Holocaust transformed the victims outlook, causing them to have a lack of empathy and faith.

Western influences in East Germany were not just visible in the renamed streets and towns, or the renovated apartment houses, new shopping malls and stores; it was also in the exploitation of East Germany as a tourist attraction. West German’s ventured East so that they could see artifacts of the old GDR that they’d heard and read about. Even Hensel’s memories had been westernized in their retelling and commodified as part of the tourist experience, as she told token GDR stories that she thought Western visitors would want to hear even though they shed no light on the everyday life in East

Spiegelman’s book presents us with a unique way of showcasing a person’s personal experience of a historical occurrence, that being the Holocaust. According to Hatfield, Spiegelman’s manner of sharing this tale is not exactly the best. Hatfield states his disagreements over Spiegelman’s book.

The following is a critique of the article “Good Times, Bad Times: Memories of The Third Reich” by Ulrich Herbert. In this critique, I will explore the themes of the article, discuss the main arguments, and address the significance of the author’s insight to the world of Nazi Germany.

When looking into the history of Germany and determining what led to the startling rise in Nazism in Germany and its detrimental effects on the social outcasts in Europe, it can be easy to deduce that the Nazi regime was one where Hitler walked in with his officials and took office by force. The truth is that, while the Nazi party is responsible for the atrocities that occurred before and during WWII, they would have not gotten far if it hadn’t been for the cooperation of the German people themselves. Life in the Third Reich provides proof through voting, youth programs and village life that the Nazi party rose into power with German support.

The widely acclaimed film, Good Bye, Lenin! (2003), is a tragicomedy set in the immediate period preceding and succeeding the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Directed and co-written by Wolfgang Becker, the film was a critical success. It attracted 6 million viewers in Germany alone, was sold to more than 60 countries and won multiple domestic as well as international film awards including six from the European Film Academy (IMDb). Two prominent and intersecting narratives underline Becker’s cinematic representation of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Firstly (and more conspicuously), the film relates a wry and often unspoken tale of German reunification through an Eastern perspective. Concurrently, a second narrative traces a private story of familial deception, tragedy and ultimately, kinship. Examining Good Bye, Lenin! under the lens of two German cultural phenomenons - Ostalgia and Mauer im Kopf - this essay contends that the film’s political significance exists primarily in its nuanced understanding and unique presentation of Germany’s journey towards national reunification. In this endeavor, Becker’s film succeeds in both reflecting and invigorating a wave of greater cultural as well as political dialogue within Germany. As such, one may view the film as a valuable socio-political instrument contributing to the country’s ongoing process of national reconciliation.

The Berlin Wall acted as the epitome of state control of the individual even in it’s breach of the UN human rights of freedom of travel, the Stasi was given control of the border and later policed the border troops. This control over the populous was carried out through a vast network of citizen informants, and the repression of all opposition by overt and covert measures, including the psychological destruction of dissidents, employing ‘Zersetzung’, literally meaning decomposition. Its Main Directorate for Reconnaissance was responsible for espionage and conducting covert operations in foreign countries. Under its long-time head Markus Wolf, this directorate gained a reputation as one of the most effective intelligence agencies of the Cold

In contrast to the desolate picture life in East Berlin painted, the economy of West Germany, which also included West Berlin, was rebounding and becoming quite strong. West Berlin’s businesses were booming, and their industry products were readily and rapidly bought by its resident who were eager to obtain the products and goods they had so long been deprived of previously, as a result of World War II.10 This new and heightening demand for goods pushed wages up quickly, and many new jobs were created with the development of new housing units and other construction enterprises.11 Movies, plays, and concerts were also available for West Berlin residents to enjoy, and overall life in West Berlin was good. However, life on the West side wasn’t all fun and games. Their city was still divided, and families were still separated. To the children of West Berlin residents, East Berlin was hidden from view and shrouded in mystery, their only knowledge of the other side coming through school or some form of media. It seemed they constantly asked themselves the question, “ Will the lives of East and West Germans forever be so vastly different and separate?”