Entertainment

By Mary Therese Biebel mbiebel@timesleader.com
Features Writer
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When Professor Jamie Trnka visited the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin, she saw some of the contraptions people devised in desperate attempts to escape from Communist East Germany.

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Left: ‘The Wall’ includes archival footage of wall-jumpers and their desperate bid for freedom in a divided Berlin.

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Above: ‘Silent Country,’ or, as it is known in Germany, ‘Stilles Land,’ will be part of the East German Film Festival at the University of Scranton. The festival commemorates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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“I’m trying to think of the word in English. It’s coming to me in German,” she said in a telephone interview. “It’s in the trunk.”

A false bottom?

“That’s it, thank you,” she said. “A falsche Deck.”

During the 29 years the Berlin Wall separated West Berlin and freedom from East Berlin and oppression, Trnka said, there were 5,000 confirmed escapes.

Sadly, there also were 125 confirmed cases of people who died trying to flee.

Then, in November 1989, as the world watched and celebrated, the dismantling of the wall began.

Trnka, who teaches German language and culture at the University of Scranton, credits the many peaceful protests that took place in East Germany for bringing about the change.

The university will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the historic occasion by screening three films during an East German Film Festival, set for Nov. 9-11.

All three films are in German with English subtitles, and the festival is free to the community.

“Leipzig in the Fall,” directed by Gerd Kroske and Andreas Voigt, documents what Trnka calls “the most important protests.”

They took place from Oct. 15 through Nov. 7, 1989, in Leipzig, which Trnka described as “not a really large city but one of the most important cities in cultural and political terms.”

The second documentary, J�rgen B�ttcher’s “The Wall,” gives “a really beautiful impression of the geography of Berlin that is simply not visible anymore,” Trnka said, praising the camera work of Thomas Plenert.

“Now the wall has so completely disappeared, even people who lived there all their lives can’t orient themselves to where it was.”

The final offering, “Silent Country,” is a feature film rather than a documentary. It was directed by Andreas Dresen, who Trnka said, is “arguably one of the most talented young directors trained in the East now recognized internationally for his work.”

The wall itself, which became a symbol of the “Cold War” between East and West, was a fortification East Germany wanted to prevent the loss of its work force.

“The wall was begun on Aug. 13, 1961, and already on the 13th, there was a woman who tried to jump over a barricade and died in the fall,” the professor said.

“It began as a series of barricades that were then fortified, so it became two large cement barriers with an occupied zone down the middle.

“The pictures we always saw were taken from the West,” said Trnka, who grew up in Michigan. “That side had the colorful graffiti. On the East side, the wall was blank. No one was allowed to get close.”

“East Germany referred to it as an ‘anti-Fascist protection wall,’ preserving a way for East German socialism to exist despite the threat from Western capitalism.”

“One of the most recurring complaints (in East Germany) was the lack of freedom to travel,” Trnka said. “Many opportunities for careers and advancement were linked to political status.”

Still, the professor said, opposition to the wall wasn’t so much about “overthrowing Communism and instituting free-market capitalism as it was about establishing democracy and freedom. It could have taken place in a Democratic Socialist situation.

“I think it’s very difficult to understand the situation of the world today without understanding this history,” Trnka continued. “A lot of my students don’t understand what the Cold War was or what kind of atmosphere people lived and worked in.”

Each showing will include a brief overview to give the audience some historical context, University of Scranton spokesman Stan Zygmunt said. After each film, there will be time for discussion.

“I hope as many people as are able will come,” Trnka said. “They’re wonderful films, and they’re not films you would see in a commercial theater.”

If you go

What: East German Film Festival

Where: Pearn Auditorium of Brennan Hall, University of Scranton, Madison Avenue, Scranton

‘Leipzig in the Fall,’ 7 p.m. Nov. 9

‘The Wall,’ 7 p.m. Nov. 10

‘Silent Country,’ 7 p.m. Nov. 11

More info: 941-7430