DOWAGIAC — Listeners went metaphorically behind the Iron Curtain during German native and professor Elisabeth Thoburn’s talk about the once divided East and West Germany by the Berlin Wall. 

On Friday, Thoburn, an instructor in the humanities department at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, presented Southwestern Michigan College’s newest art gallery exhibit, “Life Behind the Iron Curtain: A Selection of Photographs Organized by Elisabeth Thoburn.”

The exhibition will be located in the Art Gallery of Room 108 of the Dale A. Lyons Building until Oct. 31. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

The photos, which are taken by American photographers, were donated to Thoburn 15 years ago from the German Consulate of Detroit and the Geothe Institute of Ann Arbor. Thoburn has used the collection for educational purposes, she said.

For the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Thoburn showed the collection in an exhibition space. The photos will now be on display at SMC and then at Washtenaw Community College in November.

The Goethe Institute initially collected the photographs and had them travel for exhibitions. As the office was folding, it chose to donate the collection to Thoburn.

“They said, ‘Here, you keep it and make something of it,’” Thoburn said.

Thoburn has used the collection to teach others about the historical event and how even today, physical and mental walls are being continually built and torn down.

Thoburn also presented an accompanying talk titled, “The Wall that Came Down and the Walls that Remain.”

Through Thoburn’s own experiences and life stories, she detailed the historical events of living in communist East Germany.

Thoburn was born in a town named Halle, and then grew up in Dresden, Germany. As the eldest daughter of two church musicians, her family was in an exposed position by the communist government.

“My childhood was always marked by me having to be the exception,” Thoburn said. “Having to do things differently than everybody else. … We were marginalized and the government specifically fostered a climate in which church officials were ridiculed. [The government] was trying to push a Marxist communist ideology. The church doesn’t have a space in that, but the constitution allowed us religious freedom.”

Throughout her childhood and early adulthood, Thoburn grew accustomed to standing up for her religious freedom. She decided not to join the Young Pioneers, which was the communist youth organization. Thoburn also chose to not swear the oath of allegiance to the government, refused to join paramilitary classes and would not vote in elections.

During her talk, Thoburn spoke of how living in East Germany felt like she was an animal in a zoo.

“[West Germans] would come like, ‘Oh my god, this is how you live. This is how poor you are.’ Then they would say, ‘Goodbye. Here are some bananas.’ They, for us, were the big world we could never have,” Thoburn said.

At age 14, Thoburn traveled to Berlin for the first time and could see the lights from Potsdam. She talked with her father about the Potsdam agreement and how Germany was divided post World War II.

In East Germany, Thoburn said her family paid the price for their activism.

“The one thing the government could take away from every young person was going to school,” she said.

Thoburn, who dreamed of being an art historian, applied to university year after year was always denied.

“I knew this wasn’t because I didn’t meet the criteria,” she said. “But somewhere in the Stasi records [The Ministry for State Security of the German Democratic Republic], I had a list of things I had done my entire life, which was as harmless as not going to vote or not going to class.”

Thoburn was denied higher education and started in a book shop, eventually working her way into an art gallery. She also started traveling and used it as outlet.

“I felt free when I was on the road,” Thoburn said of her time spent traveling to more than 40 countries.

In 1979, Thoburn met an American man studying abroad. In 1985, the couple made a decision to get married, and Thoburn came to the U.S.

“This felt like a big betrayal towards the rebellion I had been taught,” Thoburn said. “At that point, I felt like I would sit here and work in this gallery until the rest of my days.”

Thoburn began her life in Michigan and earned a master’s degree in art history from the University of Michigan. She also went on to earn several other high academic accomplishments.

Several factors led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, including Mikhail Gorbachev, who Thoburn called a revolutionary of the Soviet Union. Peace movements hosted by the church every Monday contributed, as did a completely new generation that did not want communism anymore. In September of 1989, the Hungary boarder also opened up and people gathered. People in Thoburn’s hometown of Dresden did a peace sit in, sat with candles and sang. Twenty church officials and civil activists went to the government and spoke.

Gunter Schabowski, who was a representative of East Germany and answering questions from reporters on Nov. 9, 1989, prematurely said the wall was open. By 8:30 p.m., thousands of people were gathered at the wall. 

“There is the big joyous moment. Germany is one again, and Germany is moving forward. I think Germany has learned enough. … We have learned our lessons,” she said.

Lastly, Thoburn spoke about people’s mental walls and how they can impact individuals.

“The walls in our heads sometimes come down slower than the walls that we build up in one night or take down in one night,” she said. “We have walls in our heads that are baggage. We have stereotypes. We have prejudices, and those are the walls we have to work on. In an educational institution, I think we not only have the opportunity to change walls and minds. We have the responsibility to change walls and minds.”