Recent Programs
10.July.08 at 12 noon, Thu, in the 2nd floor Galleria in front of the museum. World War II Veterans Stories by Minnesota Filmmakers. TRACES will feature four documentary shorts done by Minnesota filmmakers about Minnesota World War II veterans. The films include a story of a veteran who served with the ski troops of the 10th Mountain Division during the war and veterans who served in key battles to defend Europe and the Pacific. At the program, the filmmakers will give a brief narrative of their films and they and the film subjects will participate in a question and answer session with the audience after the films. A grant from Travelers makes possible our monthly free programming and first Thursday free admission. The people of Travelers are actively engaged in cities and neighborhoods across America, contributing money, volunteer hours and know-how to worthy organizations.
12.June.08 at 12 noon, Thu, in the 2nd floor Galleria in front of the museum. Women and Girls: Coming of Age in the 30s, 40s and today. TRACES will feature six documentary shorts done by girls who partnered with elder women who came of age in the 30s and 40s, to explore growing up female then and now. Each girl worked with a woman partner (80 years old or older) and made a short film together sharing their experiences, fears and insights about growing up female in Minnesota. Many of the films involve mention of WWII, such as "Dearest Albina", a narrative of the life of a 92-year-old St.Paul woman and the letters exchanged with her husband during the war. The young filmmakers, as well as their subjects will present their films and answer audience questions.
All films were made by TVbyGIRLS, a nonprofit organization that works with girls ages 10 to 18 to build leadership, compassionate and collaborative working skills, critical thinking and engagement in social justice and the issues of their communities. For more information about TVbyGIRLS please visit - http://www.tvbygirls.tv/the_site/index.html
TRACES will host a luncheon reception at at 11:30 AM on Thursday, June 12, honoring Travelers and their grant contribution. The Travelers grant makes possibe our monthly free programming and first Thursday free admission. The luncheon is open to the public, but reservations are required.
1.May.08 at noon and 7PM Thu. Censorship: Then and Now
After showing a short documentary film about recent attempts in Oklahoma City to remove from public access the German film The Tin Drum, TRACES Staff will lead a discussion about this incident in specific, as well as censorship in general. This program will be held at 12 noon in the 2nd floor Galleria, in front of the museum.
Also in the Galleria at 7 PM, Brian E. Fogarty, Professor and Chair of Sociology at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul will speak on censorship and suppression of ideas found throughout our culture. He will explore why individuals or communities feel it necessary to isolate themselves from certain people or ideas. Fogarty is the author of War, Peace and the Social Order (Westview Press, 2000) and of Why Not Here? Germany, America & the Origins of Fascism (Potomac Books, forthcoming in Winter 2008). Fogarty teaches a course titled "Music, Culture, Genocide" at St. Catherine.
Learn more about the Oklahoma censorship case involving the Tin Drum.
3.Apr.08 noon Thu. German War Brides: A Retrospective Author Annelee Woodstrom will explored the experiences of former "enemies" coming to live in the American Heartland after World War II. After offering summaries of her story and responding to initial questions, the audience posed their questions about this mostly forgotten sub-chapter of Midwest/WWII history. [Chief Justice Room 430, Landmark Center]
3.Apr.08 7PM Thu. War Child: One German War Bride's Story Author Annelee Woodstrom's autobiography War Child described the Germany she knew as under Nazi dictatorship, and how meeting a Minnesota soldier at the war's end changed her life. When she arrived in Ada, Minnesota with her G.I. husband in 1947, she landed among a people recently portrayed to her as"the enemy" speaking almost no English. Now releasing her second book, Empty Chairs, she will shared more about that and related experiences in an informal setting. [Chief Justice Room 430, Landmark Center]
6.March.08 7PM Thu. Without Due Process: An Investigation of unlawful internment TRACES sponsered two speakers on Thursday, March 6th, 7 p.m. in Courtroom 317 on the third floor of the Landmark Center. Teresa Nelson, Legal Counsel for the ACLU of Minnesota, who speak about civil liberties violations involved with present-day detainment, while Michael Luick-Thrams, TRACES Executive Director, gave a historical overview of internment of German-American civilians during World War II.
“Filme im Februar / Films in February” German-Film Series
Poster / Brochure
In February 2008 TRACES Midwest/WWII Narrative History Museum and Minnesota Landmarks are co-sponsoring the first-annual “Filme im Februar / Films in February” series, which will trace the progression of German filmmaking from the 1920s to the present. The first week will feature the exuberant creativity of Germany’s Weimar Republic (1919-1933); the second will show the abrupt change caused by Nazi dictatorship; the third will document the sentiments of post-war, occupied Germany as captured in film; and the final week will show the modern revitalization of German filmmaking. These films will be shown in conjunction with speakers such as Macalester Professor Linda Schulte-Sasse, author of Entertaining the Third Reich, and Professor Kirk Allison of the University of Minnesota.
With one exception, all films will be shown in Landmark Center’s F. K. Weyerhaeuser Auditorium, lower level. The film on February 17th will be shown at the:
Germanic-American Institute
301 Summit Avenue, St. Paul
www.gai-mn.org
651.222.2927
Weimar Republic Films At the beginning of the early 20th century, Germany had emerged as a leading center of the avant-garde and the birthplace of Expressionism in art and sculpture. These films reflect the creativity of the time.
3.Feb.08 2PM Sun. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
German Expressionism first found its way into film with this movie about the somnambulant Cesare and the traveling magician, Dr. Caligari, who exercises an eerie amount of control over him—a classic in early horror-movie genre.
Lecture to follow: "On the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" Professor Linda Schulte-Sasse of Macalester College
7.Feb.08 7PM Thu. “M” (1931) -
Directed by Fritz Lang, Peter Lorre gives a chilling performance as a serial murderer who preys on small children in a film that rivals Metropolis and Lang's others as his greatest work. (sponsored by Travelers Foundation)
Nazi Era Film After the freedom experienced under the Weimar Republic, the severe censorship and confined aesthetic of filmmaking under the Nazi regime was an extreme change. While exploring how the Nazis used non-propaganda films on the silver screen to serve their purposes, the question emerges: is art under censorship still valid?
10.Feb.08 2PM Sun. The Eternal Jew (1940)
One of the most famous pieces of Nazi propaganda aimed at Jews, its depiction of the Jews of Poland as filthy, evil, corrupt, and intent on world domination was used as a justification for the horrors of the Holocaust.
Lecture to follow: "Eugenics and 'The Eternal Jew'" Professor Kirk Allison of the University of Minnesota
Special Valentine’s Day Film
14.Feb.08 7PM Thu. The Princess and the Warrior (2000) From the creators of “Run Lola Run” comes the story of Sissi, a nurse entirely devoted to her patients at Birkenhof asylum. A love story emerges as she meets Bodo, an ex-soldier wrestling with a traumatic past and a criminal future.
Post-War and Occupied-German Films In the period following the war, the German populace struggled to accept the atrocities they had participated in—directly or indirectly—under the Nazi regime. The following two films explore Germans’ search for some form of self-understanding during that tumultuous period of time.
17.Feb.08 2PM Sun. The Murderers Are Among Us (1946) A woman returns to Berlin from a concentration camp to find that a Dr. Hans Mertins is living in her apartment, and refuses to leave. Over the course of the film, an unlikely compassion and understanding forms between the two.
21.Feb.08 7PM Thu. The Tin Drum (1979) The Tin Drum stands as a monumental exception to the rule that a great novel rarely inspires a great film. Young Oskar Matzerath, who grows up in Danzig and witnesses the rise of Nazism at the eve of World War II, decides at age 3 to stop growing—effectively shutting out the world and communicating only by banging on his tin drum. Volker Schlondorff‘s epic unfolds with cinematic artistry, psychological insight, political vision and symbolic richness
Modern German Films From still coming to grips with their country’s history to moving ahead with new hope and creativity, these films show the range of modern German filmmaking.
24.Feb.08 2PM Sun. Goodbye Lenin (2003) In East Germany in 1989, Alex Kerner’s mother Christiane falls into a coma just as the Berlin Wall is about to come down. Eight months later, she wakes up, but her heart is too weak to withstand any great shock. So Alex goes to great (and often hysterical) lengths to keep the truth about her country’s reform a secret. This widely praised, Golden Globe-nominated comedy played in festivals around the world.
28.Feb.08 7PM Thu. Downfall (2004) It’s the last days of Adolf Hitler, April 1945, and Hitler’s personal secretary Traudl Junge finds herself in the Fuhrer’s bunker. Facing inevitable defeat, Hilter’s moods range from defiance to fight or fleeing, remaining loyal or opting for self-preservation. Eva Braun parties while Magda Goebbels kills her children. The movie goes on to show how Hitler and Eva lived their last hours in the infamous bunker.
(end of "Films in February")
3.Jan.08
12:00PM and repeated at 6:30PM Thu.
Travelers Free First Thursday at TRACES
Paul C. Lutz was a Lutheran pastor in Lime Springs, Iowa, when the United States entered World War II. Dangerous gossip began circulating in the town about Paul Lutz, not because of his political views, but because as a “German church” leader, Lutz occasionally led German-language services.
Entering the army in late 1943 as a chaplain, Lutz traveled from Germany to Italy to Spain, and visited the prison camp Dachau, where he witnessed the atrocities Hitler perpetrated against the Jewish people. As a chaplain able to translate and offer consolation to US soldiers and foreign soldiers, Lutz was quickly transformed in the eyes of his peers from a suspicious character based on his German roots to an upstanding US citizen willing to use his skills for his country.
Speaking on the experience of being a German-American at a time when his country was most against all things German, Charles Lutz spoke on the experiences of his father, and told one man’s story as he fought for his country, and fought against the prejudice his country held for him.
learn more about Paul Lutz
Paul Lutz and family |
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6.Dec.07 7:15PM Thu. Travelers Free First Thursday at TRACES Launch Christmas historian James Neagbour presented a narrated Power-Point travelog Christmas in Nazi Germany in the Chief Justice Room 430, Landmark Center, with plans to present in 2008 Christmas on the Midwest Homefront.
Metro-Area Quaker Potluck, Museum Tour and Discussion, 5-8PM at the Landmark Center, 22 February
2007
program flyer
Fighting the “Good War”: Minnesota and World War II brown-bag lunch series, co-sponsored by the Ramsey County Historical Society, noon-1PM Wednesdays at the Galleria, Landmark Center, 19 November-20 December 2006
outline of speakers
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