Lecture by Anna Funder at the University of Reykjavik, 22 September, 2012, Daily life under communism. Funder gives an insight into her work, Stasiland, including the dissidents and Stasi men that she interviewed and what they revealed about life in East Germany, 1945-1989. This resource includes the YouTube video and worksheet to accompany the video.

Activities for Section 2 Pages 48-95 of Peter Temple’s novel, The Broken Shore.

Hohenschonhausen Prison in East Berlin was a secret prison where dissidents were held, interrogated and tortured by the Stasi. This ezine article contains external photographs of the prison, photographs of the surveillance, interrogation and holding facilities. I have included extracts from Anna Funder’s Stasiland in which the author is taken on a tour of these rooms. The activities focus on the role of the facility in enforcing Stasi control over the German Democratic Republic. The resource can be used as part of a unit of work on the non-fiction text, Stasiland, as part of a unit on the Cold War, or as part of a unit on human rights.

Miriam Weber is the author’s inspiration for the investigative journalism behind Stasiland. This resource provides the character’s history, character, living with trauma and significance of her character to the text. The first activity requires students to look through Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 28 to discover Miriam’s personality and relationships. The second activity asks students to write an extended response to the question: To what extent has Miriam’s life been affected by the Stasi? In your response refer to: • Surveillance • Restricting personal freedoms • Denial of human rights • Torture • Concealing the truth. Students must use quotes from the text to support their response.

Activities for Chapters 7-13 of Romulus, My Father.

Sequencing activity for key events in the non-fiction text, Romulus, My Father.

This set of activities examine closely the passage in Chapter 13 where Anna Funder interviews Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler. Student activities relate to the subtle use of words and phrases to mean very different things by the interviewee and the interviewer, the way in which Funder interprets body language and tone of voice, the language used to indicate the interviewee genuinely believed in the values of the East German state and Funder’s views as explicitly expressed and suggested in the language used.

Assessment task on Raimond Gaita’s biography, Romulus My Father. The topic is: ‘Romulus’s life is marked by tragedy and chaos. Nevertheless, he never loses his passion for living.’ Discuss. The resource includes guidance for students including structure and language features of a discussion and a marking guide (rubric) to the question. The resource is designed for Australian Stage 6 students studying the VCE/HSC

Torture and its impact on people is a recurrent theme in Stasiland. This resource provides background information on what constitutes torture, reasons for torture, the legal status of torture, its impact on individuals and on whole societies. The resource provides photographs from the Hohenschönhausen Prison Museum and extracts from the text as a means to examine the impact of physical and psychological torture on characters in the text.

This activity involves students examining quotes from the text, Stasiland, and attributing them to the correct characters. Page references are provided.

An ordinary citizen who claims she has no story to tell the interviewer, Julia is a victim of Stasi oppression. The nature of the surveillance, control of her life and interrogations have a deep impact on Julia. The activities in this resource include analysing a variety of passages relating to Julia and completing a timeline of her life from Chapters 9-11.

Unit of work on Raimond Gaita’s memoir of his father, Romulus, My Father. This unit includes: Activities for Chapters 1-6 Activities for Chapters 7-13 Discussion assessment task Analysis of book review Analysis of visual images Setting Newspaper article - Profile: Raimond Gaita Sequence the events Metalanguage activity Close study of a passage: Frogmore Australia in the 1950s Character profile: Romulus Gaita Character profile: Raimond Gaita Character profile: Christine Gaita Character profile: Vacek Vilkovikas Character profile: Hora Character profile: Mitru Who Said? Quotes activity Word Search Information report assessment on selected themes Raimond Gaita’s memoir Romulus My Father a portrait of love - book review Understanding the “-isms” in Romulus, My Father From Frogmore, Victoria ezine article Theme: The relationship between animals and people Theme: Childhood trauma Theme: Discrimination against New Australians Which chapter is that? 3 Cloze activities Who am I? True or false? Crack the Code revision activity Intertextuality and Romulus, My Father

Herr Winz is a former-Stasi counter-espionage operative who is living in the past when his power and authority was significantly greater than that of his life in the re-united Germany of the 1990s. This activity includes background information and extracts from the text relating to his physical attributes and personality. Students are asked to use this information to write their own description of him.

Word Search on the text, Stasiland.

Assessment task for the text Stasiland: It is not only the subject matter but also the use of different perspectives that makes Stasiland confronting. Discuss this statement making detailed reference to your prescribed text. (2017 Higher School Certificate). Included is an overview of the Discussion Text Type, how to answer a discussion question using correct language features and structure and a marking guide (rubric) to the task. The task is designed for Australian Stage 6 students of the VCE/HSC.

Stasiland - Activities for Chapters 25-28

This resource gives an overview of the time context to the memoir, Romulus, My Father including the political, economic and social status of Australia in the 1950s and how the decade is reflected in the text. There are passages from the text that reflect the times and how the characters interact with the music, laws, discrimination and values of the 1950s. Students analyse these passages to look at these links.

Raimond Gaita uses beautiful descriptive language to evoke his childhood home, Frogmore. He choice of words and phrases transport the reader to another place and time. Unusually, he declines to pass judgment on the poverty-stricken conditions of the farm in which he was raised, indicating that our memories of childhood are predominantly positive as we accept the harshest of conditions as being the norm.

Key words and concepts in the topic, Romulus, My Father.

Newspaper article from The Sydney Morning Herald, Profile: Raimond Gaita. Includes focus questions.