Documentary to highlight Gander's history as a 'crossroads' for refugees
From communist defectors to the 'plane people' of 9/11, a documentary is being development about Gander's history as a crossroads of the world.
Gander got the crossroads label for its aviation history, but for many people, coming to the town marked a turning point in their lives.
German filmmaker Lukas Wagner was in the town last week week, researching and conducting interviews.
Wagner told CBC Radio's Central Morning Show that the film will tell the stories of east German defectors, Hungarian refugees and what transpired on Sept.11, 2001, when Gander hosted passengers from 38 planes that were forced to land there.
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He said his inspiration for the documentary came from a book that was written by a German journalist.
"She wrote about one of the days in North America, she was writing about Gander in one chapter and she mentioned people from eastern Germany defecting here," he said.
"[Talking about] the time they had when they had to stop over flying from let's say, eastern Berlin to Havana, to Cuba — and that's when they jumped off the plane and asked for asylum, right here in Gander."
Wagner said when he started to research the town, he soon discovered Gander's roots were deep ones when it came to refugees seeking asylum, with stories tracing back to the 1930s.
"I'm mostly interested in all those refugee stories. Having all those people coming through, the refugees coming through in 1956 from Hungary," he said.
"It was just [an] ongoing story until 9/11. So, if you take everything together, it's quite a complex situation. It is showing world history in one little town in the middle of, let's call it nowhere, because it's really far off [from] everything. And that was the starting point."
Wagner said he's already spoken with the town's mayor, as well as a 99-year-old resident who moved to Gander in the 1940s to work as a military meteorologist.