The Woodrow Wilson Center’s History and Public Policy Program, in cooperation with The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany & The Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies of George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, present

Film Screening: “Liberty Train, Next Stop Freedom”

Friday, 10 October, 2014, 3:00pm-6:00pm
Woodrow Wilson Center, 6^th Floor Flom Auditorium

To mark the 25^th anniversary of the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, filmmakers Sebastian Dehnhardt and Matthias Schmidt have created a moving new documentary film. The film portrays the dramatic events surrounding the mass occupation of the West German embassy in Prague by East German refugees seeking permission to leave for the West. Negotiations between East and West Germany in late September 1989 led to their release and their travel by special trains from Prague to West Germany via the GDR on a chilly night at the end of September. As the first train traveled through East Germany, the refugees feared they would be taken off, and other East Germans along the way clambered to board the train. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with two Germans who grew up and experienced the revolutionary changes of 1989-90 in East Germany.