On Wednesday of January, only five Germans braved the cold to go to the archives of the Stasi, the former political police of East Germany, located in Schwerin, a beautiful small town located between Berlin and Hamburg. Like the other eleven centers in the country, it is open during office hours, but offers a guided tour per week.
The five visitors, two young lovers, a retiree and a couple of sixty years, are interested but not very explicit. Three quarters of an hour is enough to explain that the archivist for this single center contains 750,000 records, which occupy about 3 km radius. Two cases of "unofficial collaborators" (the famous IM Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter) are presented.
An "ordinary" citizens, who worked for twenty years cons of coffee and some modest rewards, and a schoolgirl 16 years, daughter of Party members, which describes in detail the views and actions of his comrades class. There is also, of course, records of victims. At the end of the visit, the three oldest people quietly take the archive from.
Finally, they also want to apply. Whether or not the Stasi had a file on them. Know what you thought of them. Over twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the wound is still gaping. Contrary to expectations, the number of citizens wanting to visit their eventual record does not decrease.
In 2010, the administration created for this purpose at the reunion received 87,514 applications. Of course, the media coverage of the 20 years of reunification has contributed to this craze, but it's not just that. "It's difficult to make such an approach. We do not know what you will find.
Do we really want to know that this or that was near MI? My mother 81 years has made the request six years ago. At home, we never spoke. It took whatever my daughter, who has two decades, pushing his grandmother to do during a meal family, "tells the archivist. A classic scenario apparently.
Inspect the file is always a delicate moment. Let's find of the rape of privacy or the betrayal of a loved one, or nothing. And that's just better. In this country of 17 million inhabitants, where the Stasi employed before the Wall fell more than 90 000 full-time employees (three times more than the KGB!) And 189 000 IM, was it not to be insignificant appear on one of the 39 million cards which now occupy 111 km Archives! "From the moment you apply, you can imagine all sorts of things and you are often disappointed when there's nothing," said the Recorder.
Regularly, the past of any suitably resurfaced. We learned a few days ago that Siegfried Sievert, industrialist suspected of being behind the latest scandal caused by the presence of dioxin in animal feed, IM had been for eighteen years. As if this made him more suspicious. With more than 1 800 employees, the Authority to manage the archive plays a key role in working memory of the country.
After the Rev. Joachim Gauck (1990-2000), a highly respected legal figure, then Marianne Birthler (2000-2011), a Green MP, is a journalist who takes over from mid-March as head of archives of the Stasi. Given by the government, nominated Roland Jahn "at this important and sensitive position," said a member, has indeed been widely approved by the Bundestag on 28 January.
Although known for his outspokenness, the 57-year-old managed to convince all parties, the CDU to the Left Party, consisting mainly of former Communists. Like its predecessors, Roland Jahn is an "Ossi" who, very early, opposed the regime of East Germany. Strong head, he will actively support the dissident Wolf Biermann singer before being sent to prison and then deported against his will into West Berlin in 1983.
Until the Berlin Wall fell, he never stopped to assist his former comrades, who remained in the East. Since then, he hosted a political magazine on public television. Nevertheless, little by little, the Stasi made history. On 15 January, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Christian Wulff, inaugurated in the heart of Berlin, a permanent exhibition devoted to the Stasi, created at the initiative of the administration of archives.
You could already see the imposing headquarters of the Stasi or the sinister prison nearby, but these memorials are managed by associations and not by the state. The place chosen for the exhibition is anything but trivial: halfway between the center of documentation "Topography of Terror", prepared where the Gestapo had its headquarters, and Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous crossing point between the two parts of the city from 1961 to 1989.
"The unvarnished confrontation with the past is one of the great contributions of our political culture and a cornerstone of the identity of our nation," said Christian Wulff. In Schwerin, one of the cabinets containing the claims records, we read this sentence Joachim Gauck: "The documents of a dictatorship is a pharmacy cons nostalgia." Email: Lemaitre @ bbc.
fr. Frédéric Lemaître Article published in the edition of 01.02.11 
The five visitors, two young lovers, a retiree and a couple of sixty years, are interested but not very explicit. Three quarters of an hour is enough to explain that the archivist for this single center contains 750,000 records, which occupy about 3 km radius. Two cases of "unofficial collaborators" (the famous IM Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter) are presented.
An "ordinary" citizens, who worked for twenty years cons of coffee and some modest rewards, and a schoolgirl 16 years, daughter of Party members, which describes in detail the views and actions of his comrades class. There is also, of course, records of victims. At the end of the visit, the three oldest people quietly take the archive from.
Finally, they also want to apply. Whether or not the Stasi had a file on them. Know what you thought of them. Over twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the wound is still gaping. Contrary to expectations, the number of citizens wanting to visit their eventual record does not decrease.
In 2010, the administration created for this purpose at the reunion received 87,514 applications. Of course, the media coverage of the 20 years of reunification has contributed to this craze, but it's not just that. "It's difficult to make such an approach. We do not know what you will find.
Do we really want to know that this or that was near MI? My mother 81 years has made the request six years ago. At home, we never spoke. It took whatever my daughter, who has two decades, pushing his grandmother to do during a meal family, "tells the archivist. A classic scenario apparently.
Inspect the file is always a delicate moment. Let's find of the rape of privacy or the betrayal of a loved one, or nothing. And that's just better. In this country of 17 million inhabitants, where the Stasi employed before the Wall fell more than 90 000 full-time employees (three times more than the KGB!) And 189 000 IM, was it not to be insignificant appear on one of the 39 million cards which now occupy 111 km Archives! "From the moment you apply, you can imagine all sorts of things and you are often disappointed when there's nothing," said the Recorder.
Regularly, the past of any suitably resurfaced. We learned a few days ago that Siegfried Sievert, industrialist suspected of being behind the latest scandal caused by the presence of dioxin in animal feed, IM had been for eighteen years. As if this made him more suspicious. With more than 1 800 employees, the Authority to manage the archive plays a key role in working memory of the country.
After the Rev. Joachim Gauck (1990-2000), a highly respected legal figure, then Marianne Birthler (2000-2011), a Green MP, is a journalist who takes over from mid-March as head of archives of the Stasi. Given by the government, nominated Roland Jahn "at this important and sensitive position," said a member, has indeed been widely approved by the Bundestag on 28 January.
Although known for his outspokenness, the 57-year-old managed to convince all parties, the CDU to the Left Party, consisting mainly of former Communists. Like its predecessors, Roland Jahn is an "Ossi" who, very early, opposed the regime of East Germany. Strong head, he will actively support the dissident Wolf Biermann singer before being sent to prison and then deported against his will into West Berlin in 1983.
Until the Berlin Wall fell, he never stopped to assist his former comrades, who remained in the East. Since then, he hosted a political magazine on public television. Nevertheless, little by little, the Stasi made history. On 15 January, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Christian Wulff, inaugurated in the heart of Berlin, a permanent exhibition devoted to the Stasi, created at the initiative of the administration of archives.
You could already see the imposing headquarters of the Stasi or the sinister prison nearby, but these memorials are managed by associations and not by the state. The place chosen for the exhibition is anything but trivial: halfway between the center of documentation "Topography of Terror", prepared where the Gestapo had its headquarters, and Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous crossing point between the two parts of the city from 1961 to 1989.
"The unvarnished confrontation with the past is one of the great contributions of our political culture and a cornerstone of the identity of our nation," said Christian Wulff. In Schwerin, one of the cabinets containing the claims records, we read this sentence Joachim Gauck: "The documents of a dictatorship is a pharmacy cons nostalgia." Email: Lemaitre @ bbc.
fr. Frédéric Lemaître Article published in the edition of 01.02.11
- How to Dress Well played Church of the Messiah w/ Autre Ne Veut, covered Ariel Pink (just like PS22) -- review & videos (31/01/2011)
- How to Dress Well playing a Brooklyn church w/ Autre Ne Veut & other dates (12/01/2011)
- L'Autre Pied Dine-and-Dash Couple Arrested (16/11/2010)
- Download Eux Autres' "Queen Turner" mp3 (16/11/2010)
- Je est un autre: David Wojnarowicz's Rimbaud in New York (31/01/2011)
No comments:
Post a Comment