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“Sonderzüge” Krsto Papić The film “Special Trains,” by the Croatian film maker Krsto Papic´, was the first documentary on the recruitment of Yugoslavian foreign workers, and their departure for Germany. The “special trains” ran every Tuesday from Zagreb to Munich. From there, the recruited workers were distributed over the country. In “Special Trains,” Papic´ concentrates on three important stations of the recruitment: the recruitment procedure including a medical test, the journey, and the reception at the so called “forwarding office” at Munich central station, a former air-raid shelter. In this way, Papic´ is able to portray all persons involved: the migrants, the German recruitment commissioners and the Yugoslavian civil servants, thus showing the most different points of view and languages and the rungs of dehumanisation. The recruitment functionary speaks about persons as commodities: the Yugoslavian workers are preferred because of their “good quality.” The language of the bureaucracy takes its full effect in Munich: the recruited are no longer addressed by their names, but by the number of their employment contract. The Yugoslavian authorities in turn address them as representatives of their home country and admonish them to conduct themselves well. Opposed to all these forms of address are the talks and comments by the migrants, who tell about their motivations and reasons to travel. None of the interviewed seems to have left the country by choice, but to escape from a situation of financial or private distress. Wrench mixes with the lack of understanding of the situation, with strong criticism of their treatment, as well as of the policy in their home country, that led to the conditions which forced people to leave. Artist, born in 1933, lives and works in Zagreb. |
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