Stasiland

by

Anna Funder

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Julia Behrend Character Analysis

Julia Behrend is the owner of the apartment where Anna Funder stays during her time in Berlin. She’s a young woman, the same age as Anna, and she grew up in East Germany at a time when the Stasi were being particularly aggressive in monitoring its citizens. Julia excelled at languages, but she was barred from becoming a translator or an interpreter because of her relationship with an Italian man. Amazingly, she was able to pressure Stasi officers into giving her some work by threatening to write directly to Erich Honecker. Julia’s memories of East Germany, and the immediate aftermath of the fall of the East German state, continue to wound her. Shortly after the Berlin Wall falls, she was raped by a strange man who, it’s quite possible, was released from prison in the confusion of the new political order.

Julia Behrend Quotes in Stasiland

The Stasiland quotes below are all either spoken by Julia Behrend or refer to Julia Behrend. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Authoritarianism and the East German State Theme Icon
).
Chapter 10 Quotes

Whenever he stayed with her, the surveillance was intense and overt.
The couple could hardly leave the house without being stopped by the police and asked to account for themselves.

Related Characters: Anna Funder (speaker), Julia Behrend
Page Number: 99
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

Her voice is slow. ‘I think I'd totally repressed that entire episode,’ she says. ‘Maybe what came later, the whole 1989 story, was so severe that other things just fell away. Otherwise, I can't explain it.’

Related Characters: Julia Behrend (speaker)
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

Julia doesn't know why the Stasi was afraid of them complaining to Honecker. Possibly because both her parents were teachers, and outwardly conformist, or because the Stasi had no ‘legal’ basis for what it had done to her. Who knows? It is one of the very rare occasions when the bluff was called and someone ‘won’ against the Firm.
‘The amazing thing was,’ Julia says, ‘the next week I was rung up about a job.’ She was taken on as a receptionist in a hotel. It looked like she would work there for her lifetime.

Related Characters: Julia Behrend (speaker)
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

She is convinced that, in the amnesties of 1990, mistakes were made and the serial rapist was released. ‘It was terrible that this happened to me right at that time,’ she says. ‘It meant that before the good things about the west got to us, this negative thing—the letting loose of the criminals—affected me.’

Related Characters: Anna Funder (speaker), Julia Behrend (speaker)
Page Number: 144
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

I am working in a feminist bookshop near Berkeley, and have made some friends. We went on a ‘Reclaim the Night’ march recently, something that made me feel real positive, and far away from Thüringen and everything that happened here.

Related Characters: Julia Behrend (speaker), Anna Funder
Page Number: 246
Explanation and Analysis:
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Julia Behrend Quotes in Stasiland

The Stasiland quotes below are all either spoken by Julia Behrend or refer to Julia Behrend. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Authoritarianism and the East German State Theme Icon
).
Chapter 10 Quotes

Whenever he stayed with her, the surveillance was intense and overt.
The couple could hardly leave the house without being stopped by the police and asked to account for themselves.

Related Characters: Anna Funder (speaker), Julia Behrend
Page Number: 99
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

Her voice is slow. ‘I think I'd totally repressed that entire episode,’ she says. ‘Maybe what came later, the whole 1989 story, was so severe that other things just fell away. Otherwise, I can't explain it.’

Related Characters: Julia Behrend (speaker)
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

Julia doesn't know why the Stasi was afraid of them complaining to Honecker. Possibly because both her parents were teachers, and outwardly conformist, or because the Stasi had no ‘legal’ basis for what it had done to her. Who knows? It is one of the very rare occasions when the bluff was called and someone ‘won’ against the Firm.
‘The amazing thing was,’ Julia says, ‘the next week I was rung up about a job.’ She was taken on as a receptionist in a hotel. It looked like she would work there for her lifetime.

Related Characters: Julia Behrend (speaker)
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

She is convinced that, in the amnesties of 1990, mistakes were made and the serial rapist was released. ‘It was terrible that this happened to me right at that time,’ she says. ‘It meant that before the good things about the west got to us, this negative thing—the letting loose of the criminals—affected me.’

Related Characters: Anna Funder (speaker), Julia Behrend (speaker)
Page Number: 144
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

I am working in a feminist bookshop near Berkeley, and have made some friends. We went on a ‘Reclaim the Night’ march recently, something that made me feel real positive, and far away from Thüringen and everything that happened here.

Related Characters: Julia Behrend (speaker), Anna Funder
Page Number: 246
Explanation and Analysis: