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A review by sytze_
Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder
3.0
"Some people are comfortable talking about their lives, as if they can make sense of the progression of random events that made them what they are."
I know little about the former GDR - only what has been discussed in my history classes and German lessons in secondary school. Before reading this book, I did not think of the GDR as I would think of any other totalitarian state, Nazi Germany or Stalin's USSR. For some reason, the GDR was - in my mind - a quirky, peculiar nation led by a foreign ideology, but in a nostalgic, almost charming way.
This book does away with that image. It tells the horrors of the GDR - Stasiland - from the perspective of both the victims and perpetrators (even though the latter might not see themselves as such). It's a grim reminder how quickly the world can change, and that we should be wary of this.
I know little about the former GDR - only what has been discussed in my history classes and German lessons in secondary school. Before reading this book, I did not think of the GDR as I would think of any other totalitarian state, Nazi Germany or Stalin's USSR. For some reason, the GDR was - in my mind - a quirky, peculiar nation led by a foreign ideology, but in a nostalgic, almost charming way.
This book does away with that image. It tells the horrors of the GDR - Stasiland - from the perspective of both the victims and perpetrators (even though the latter might not see themselves as such). It's a grim reminder how quickly the world can change, and that we should be wary of this.