Negotiating Borders in Anna Seghers’ and Christian Petzold’s Transit

Abstract

1 This article focuses on the negotiation of borders in Anna Seghers’ novel Transit (1944) and Christian Petzold’s film of the same name (2018). Seghers’ Exilroman , set in the 1940s, describes the torment of a nameless refugee from Germany waiting to escape Marseille, one of the last open ports in a Europe ravaged by National Socialism. Seventy years later, Petzold’s film delves into the history of displacement and nationalism in Europe by setting the fascist persecution in the 1940s amongst the refugee “crisis” in the present day. Drawing on a trans-period approach which is already present in Seghers’ book, the Berlin School director presents expulsion and migration as timeless phenomena, grounding his film in the historical movement of populations across borders. Both authors construe the crossing of borders as a loss of identity and alienation, but offer different solutions, if any, to what they perceive as an existential as well as a political predicament. After providing some background to each work and author, I will analyse Petzold’s diachronic adaptation of Seghers’ novel before demonstrating that he deploys an understanding of migration inherent in the earlier text. Considering both authors’ representation of displacement as the loss, not only of the home, but also of the self, I will then examine how their coping strategies involve creating and sharing narratives, yet diverge in fundamental ways: Seghers’ self-reliance and international solidarity is juxtaposed with Petzold’s submitting to the absurdity of the transit space. Finally, I will argue that the state of crisis experienced by Seghers’ and Petzold’s protagonists is tied to the enforcement of borders both within and around Europe, making this an enduring humanitarian as well as artistic issue which needs to be addressed in order to protect the rich yet contested multicultural community which has historically shaped, and continues to shape, this continent. décrit le tourment d'un réfugié allemand sans nom attendant de s'échapper du Marseille des années 1940, l'une des dernières frontières ouvertes dans une Europe ravagée par le national-socialisme. 70 ans plus tard, le film multilingue du réalisateur de l'école de Berlin se penche sur l'histoire des déplacements et du nationalisme en Europe en situant la persécution fasciste des années 1940 dans le contexte de la crise des migrants dans la France d'aujourd'hui. L'approche trans-périodique distinctive de Petzold donne la parole aux marginalisés et aux déplacés sur deux siècles et deux continents, rendant impossible de séparer la "vieille" de la "nouvelle" Europe. Présentant l'expulsion et la migration comme des phénomènes intemporels, Petzold parle de la fluctuation historique des frontières et des mouvements de populations. Les deux auteurs interprètent le franchissement des frontières comme une perte d'identité et une aliénation, mais proposent des solutions différentes, si tant est qu'il y en ait, à ce qu'ils perçoivent comme une situation existentielle et politique délicate.