Karl Marx City follows filmmaker's search for answers about her father and East German Stasi
East German native Petra Epperlein suffers from a condition called "ostalgie" — a nostalgia for all things East. It's something she says she's lived with for a very long time.
Twenty-five years after the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Epperlein returned to her hometown of Karl Marx City on a quest for answers into the life and suicide of her father. Her documentary Karl Marx City chronicles her quest as she delves into the archives of the Stasi, trying to learn whether her father had in fact been a Stasi operative.
"Having worked for the Stasi was pretty much the worst thing you could accuse someone of in East Germany. And still to this day, that's actually the case," Epperlein tells The Current's Friday host Piya Chattopadhyay.
"The Stasi was the sword and shield of the Communist party. So they, basically, had to do anything to keep the party in power; that was their task. And they decided that they needed to collect information on everybody in East Germany. They wanted to know everything about everybody,"
The Stasi's archives are extensive and Epperlein is still going through documents.
"There are still thousands of bags with shredded files. The German people have decided that they cannot let the Stasi decide on their fate — what they can know, and what they cannot know. And so they are putting these shredded files back together, which is incredible."
Listen to the full conversation at the top of this post.
This segment was produced by The Current's Marc Apollonio.