I’m writing and rewriting the script. I add information and leave information out. Every time you get a slightly different story. It is sometimes difficult to say which one is better, but it does make clear that as writing is selecting, not everything will be told.
In my research I tried to get an idea about the range of different stories, sometimes hidden behind the facts and figures presented in the Information Bulletins. One of the stories was of a woman who repatriated. In the monthly reports was stated for obvious reasons that no one repatriated. Until there appeared the figure 1 and a name of a woman.
With the help of the National Archive in Estonia and the willingness of the family to share the story, I found out more: she was in her mid-forties, came from the country side and was on her own. She had no education, no knowledge of foreign languages. How would she be able to cope when the refugee camp would be closed? Countries were looking for young, healthy women. Emigration would become problematic.
She probably missed her family, as well as the countryside. How difficult the decision was for her to return, is not known, but she decided to do so. Her half brother helped her to get a job in gardening on a collective farm.
She passed away in 1970. Her story will not be in the film and yet it is part of the whole collection of stories which form together an idea, an image, of camp life in Geislingen.