When the Checkpoint Charlie exhibition opened in the Arthouse in Dublin on Tuesday evening it was a time for celebration and commemoration. People wandered solemnnly around examining the photos of the Berlin Wall; the suitcases people used to escape in; and even a car used to hide escapees, all of which had been transported from the Checkpoint Charlie museum in Berlin.
For two of the guests, the exhibition was more than history. Wolf- gang Eulitz was there with his wife Inga Eulitz, whom he helped to escape when he strapped her under his Skoda car before driving across the checkpoint. They and other escapees tell their stories in a documentary made by Simon Woods, which is being shown at Arthouse during the exhibition.
Renate Ahrens-Kramer, the German author of When The Wall Came Down, a play to be performed by the Storytellers Theatre Company at Arthouse from January 22nd, attended the exhibition opening. Members of the cast including Johnny Murphy and Iseult Golden joined the crowd, and although Storytellers' artistic director, Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy, was unable to attend the opening, she was represented by her daughters Ruth and Emma instead. Mary Elizabeth will be returning to the stage for the first time in many years to take a performing role in the play.