Polnische Perlen

A documentary piece about Eastern European nurses

Until a few years ago, almost only men left home and family to earn money abroad, in road construction, in heavy industry or in the field. The image is reversed in the New Economy, with scores of women streaming into the global job market to work in the care industry. Care and love are considered female domains, and people in developed countries pay for them. Due to the demographic development, there is a new need for care staff: More and more nurses are traveling from Eastern Europe to Germany to look after elderly people, often in a 24-hour service, 7 days a week.

Werkgruppe2 has researched the project for one of Germany’s largest low-wage sectors, 24-hour home-based care. We interviewed Eastern European women and men, who over the years care for old people in need of care for a few months around the clock in their private households in Germany. Mostly an exploitative but tolerated employment relationship arising from a mutual need: the low and low paid labor supply in the European East and the lack of affordable home care in Germany, which goes hand in hand with the desire not to burden the family members. And who of us does not want to grow old in our own four walls?

direction: Julia Roesler
scenografy: Julia Schiller
costumes: Dorothea Hoffmann
music: Insa Rudolph (composition, direction) | Katharina Pfänder (violin)  | Kristina Van de Sand (viola) | Lisa Stepf (Cello)
dramaturgy: Silke Merzhäuser, Axel Preuss

a coproduction with Staatstheater Braunschweig