Length: any (recommendation: 1/2 to 1 day)
Start / finish: Golzow
At first glance, the small village of Golzow in the Oderbruch is quite tranquil and inconspicuous. However, it is world famous among documentary film connoisseurs because the protagonists of the largest long-term documentary in film history come from here.
The filmmaker couple Barbara and Winfried Junge accompanied 18 Golzow children from the time they started school until the time after German unification, linking their personal biographies with everyday life in the GDR and the course of German post-war history. The fact that Golzow, of all people, was chosen for the documentation was based on a recommendation from the district school council of Frankfurt (Oder) at the time. At that time, a new central school was opened in the village, which was intended to provide the children of the surrounding villages with a ten-grade education and replaced the small-scale village schools, as can be seen from the memories of the filmmaker Winfried Junge. The long-term documentary provides very impressive insights into the personal biographies and the associated fates and crises of typical GDR lives up to the time as a German citizen in the period from 1961 to 2005.
Certainly some visitors to the documentation center “The Children of Golzow” in the village will be able to draw intensive parallels to their own biographies. This makes this documentary a living milestone in film and real history to this day.
Sights along the route
- Golzow Children's Film Museum
- "Gasthaus Wagner"