Flucht aus der DDR.
Fleeing the GDR.

Images of flight in Julia Franck’s Lagerfeuer and its film adaptation Westen

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the topic of flight from the GDR to the GFR in the 70s, as shown in Julia Franck’s novel Lagerfeuer and its film adaptation Westen. The novel is partially based on the author’s own experience as a child when her family left the GDR. However, the novel is more like a fictitious story of a scholarly person who leaves thecommunist country. The film adaptation depicts the hopeless waiting in a refugee camp near Berlin from four perspectives. Accordingly, four ways of life are presented along with the political background, personal motivations and crises. The paper focuses on questions of foreignness and freedom that the protagonists have to experience and cope with in order to survive. The motives of fear and persecution are examined in scenes like the interrogation by the authorities. Last but not least, the paper also discusses the differences between the literary text and its film adaptation.

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