Forced confessions for 10 Euros, anyone?
How about forcing everyone to work for peanuts in the amusement park while the directors live in luxury? Ah, those were the days!
Posted on 02/27/2003 8:19:27 PM PST by nickcarraway
BERLIN (Reuters) - Hoping to capitalise on a wave of nostalgia for Communist East Germany, a Berlin company is planning to build a theme park that revives life behind the Iron Curtain in the country that disappeared nearly 13 years ago.
Massine Productions GmbH hopes to recreate a 10,000-square metre (107,600 sq ft) replica of East Germany, complete with surly border guards, rigorous customs inspections, authentic East German mark notes, and restaurants with regulation bland East German food.
"The aim isn't to make big joke out of East Germany," said Susanne Reich, a spokeswoman for the company which is expected to invest several million euros on the project, slated for the southeastern Berlin district of Koepenick.
"It was an important part of Germany's history and the period should be recreated as accurately as possible."
Nostalgia for East Germany has lingered ever since reunification in 1990. Known as "Ostalgie", a play on the German words for east and nostalgia, the spirit has given rise to scores of "GDR parties", books, songs and popular films.
A German film "Good Bye, Lenin", in which a man recreates East Germany in a 79-square-metre (850-sq-ft) flat to protect his ailing mother from the shock of reunification after she comes out of a coma, has surged to the top of the German film charts and more than a million people have been to see it.
Even though East Germany lasted just four decades, Reich insists that the project has the potential to go the distance:
"We've spoken to a number of tourist agencies in Europe and the United States, and there's been plenty of interest."
Forced confessions for 10 Euros, anyone?
How about forcing everyone to work for peanuts in the amusement park while the directors live in luxury? Ah, those were the days!
I like it already! Where do I sign up?
Achtung Mein Herren! IT"S CALLED CUBA!!!!
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And yet they seem to be doing such a good job of it.
Perzactly. ;)
I hate to spoil it for everyone, but I'm living with surly cops, rigorous customs inspections each time I come and go, and lousy restaurants with bland food. (when they're not out of certain stuff). Only thing missing in my life are the East German marks!
Somehow I can't imagine ANYONE paying to undergo what I've been through the last seven years. 'course, I've got beaches, sunshine, and lots of alcohol. Something East Germany never had.
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If this works, my idea of creating Hell On Earth should be a big success. I never figured people would pay fifty bucks to go to Hell, but maybe they would.