I see before me a road...
going across the bare fields...
and clouds are flying overhead.
LAND OF SILENCE AND DARKNESS
FROM THE LIFE OF THE DEAF-BLIND FINI STRAUBINGER
When I was a child, before I was like this...
I watched a ski-jumping competition.
And one thing keeps coming back...
those men going through the air...
I looked at their faces.
I wish you could see that.
I always jump when I'm touched. Years go by in waiting.
Could Miss Straubinger...
tell us about the animals?
That was a great joy for us.
First we went to the quadrupeds.
There was a hind, full size...
- the animals all are full size...
to give the blind an idea of them.
The hind's skin was wonderful.
There was a stag's head...
with really big antlers.
Its mouth was open.
I was amazed by its size.
There also were hares...
sitting, or in jumping position.
Some were afraid of the mice.
The second room contained birds.
A woodpecker on a tree...
very interesting...
and another, a green one.
I was delighted.
And a pheasant with its feathers.
What a pity you can't see the colors!
Can Miss Julie tell us about the animals?
They ask...
if you could also...
tell us about the animals.
I don't know much any more.
Her memory is very bad.
Tell us what you know.
I touched a lot of animals...
I had never seen before.
Pheasants, crocodiles...
snakes, tigers, lions...
and many others.
Also European animals: Goats, stags, hares...
foxes and even a mouse.
THE FIRST FLIGHT
MEMORIES
I was rather temperamental when I was young.
I made it quite difficult for my mother...
she always had to check me.
My father died at the age of 33.
I was hardly six.
And when I wasn't watched...
I could do what I liked.
That's how, when I was nine...
I fell down the stairs...
from the third to the second floor.
I fell on my back, and my neck...
with such force that a neighbor...
thought he had heard shooting.
He asked me if I was hurt.
I told him I wasn't, and I asked him...
not to tell my mother.
I climbed the stairs on all fours...
because I couldn't walk.
It really was a terrible blow.
I sat down and prayed:
Please, make that my mother won't punish me.
From that day, I always felt pain...
especially in my head.
The doctor said it was my growing up.
A second one agreed.
The third understood I'd fallen.
I always did my best at school.
I was very attentive.
One day the teacher told me:
Fini, you should write on the lines.
I said yes, of course.
Then I understood...
I couldn't see the lines any more.
I wanted to learn embroidering...
but I had to leave that very soon.
They told me to go home...
because I couldn't see enough.
I didn't care about embroidering any more.
That was the beginning of the end.
First I went blind.
I was 15 years and 9 months.
Then I had to stay in bed.
My eyes hurt very much.
At 18 I began to have ear troubles.
At first I didn't understand those sounds...
and one day I was completely deaf.
Mother talked to me and I didn't hear her.
She came to my bed and asked: Why don't you answer me?
I said: Did you say something?
Yes, but you don't answer.
I said I hadn't heard anything.
We were very frightened.
My deafness was very strange.
First it was the right ear...
and then the left one.
I wanted to see a doctor...
I took foot-baths, I prayed...
but it wasn't any use.
Gradually I lost my hearing...
up to a rest of 5%.
I fled to religion.
It gave me strength...
but this terrible loneliness stayed on.
People promised to visit me...
but they didn't come.
And when they came, they talked to my mother...
and I stayed in my silent world.
And when I talked, my mother hit me lightly...
and said she'd tell me later.
I wanted to participate.
How long did you stay in bed?
Nearly 30 years.
I always tried to get up.
Sometimes I couldn't move at all.
It was awful.
When the doctor noticed it could be very long...
he took me off the morphine.
It was difficult, but I got through it.
People think deafness means silence...
but that's wrong.
It's a constant noise...
going from a gentle humming...
through some cracking sounds to a steady droning, which is worst.
You don't know what to do any more.
It's very hard on us.
Sometimes it makes us rather touchy.
It's the same for the blind.
It isn't total darkness.
You often see all kinds of colors.
Black, grey, white...
blue, green, yellow...
it depends...
Hello, Mr. Messmer.
I'm very glad...
you came here.
Fini invited her friends for her birthday.
They're blind and deaf like her.
It isn't easy to Organize.
Everybody must have a companion...
to translate everything in the hand.
Hello, Mrs. Meier.
Where is Mr. Forster?
Hello, Mr. Forster.
Translate everything we say...
for Mrs. Meier.
She still sees a bit.
But they also need help...
so they don't find themselves unprepared...
in the land of silence and darkness.
Hello, dear Juliet.
Where is...
Mr. Hundhammer?
Noble friend George, where are you?
Here.
Hello, Mr. Hundhammer.
Thank you for coming with Juliet.
Hello.
Is everybody here?
Yes, all set.
Who's there?
Mrs. Augustin?
No, it's the "Little Snail".
Hello my "Little Snail".
So hello everybody.
Who will say a poem?
Please translate for the deaf-blind.
I will speak slowly.
For when the deaf-blind can't follow things...
and keeps staring into the void...
he is very depressed.
I will tell you a poem...
reflecting on our situation.
The title is: The most wonderful art.
To stay apart...
When others have fun...
But being happy all the time...
Gladly carrying out...
The most sacred task...
Renouncing in a noble way...
One's personal desires...
Living in darkness...
From the sun...
But shining like a star...
That is the art that only one...
Whose soul is bent on heaven can understand.
Can I start?
Ann with the beautiful hat...
Which becomes you so well...
You make up for joy...
You have cleaned our stairs...
For which I thank you here...
Today and every day...
For things well done...
Is what I like most of all.
In the afternoon, Fini and her guests...
go to see the botanical garden.
You can touch it lightly.
It's like a column.
Shaped like columns...
That's a cactus.
Very interesting.
This is the cactus' fruit.
The fruit of the cactus.
You can take one.
This is the fruit.
The autochthons eat it.
The flesh is good.
Who eats it?
The autochthons.
Are they ripe?
No, it's too small.
You must peel it.
You must peel it first.
Can I eat it?
Not like this.
Thank you.
Look!
That's bamboo.
- Is it bamboo? - No.
I didn't think it like that.
It will be January...
and I'll have a lot of work.
First the visits here...
and then in the Palatinate.
No, not before Christmas.
All I still have to do...
Mr. Schwarzhaber asked me to prepare a show...
but what, how and where?
For 4 years, Fini Straubinger...
visits the deaf-blind of Bavaria...
on behalf of the League for the Blind.
Accompanied by Mrs. Mittermeier...
who translates everything into her hand...
she keeps in touch with the deaf-blind...
and takes care of their problems.
My coupon, thank you.
If I were a painter...
I'd represent our condition like this:
Blindness like a black river...
flowing slowly like a melody...
towards great falls.
On its banks, trees and flowers...
and birds singing sweetly.
The other river, coming from the other side...
is as clear as the purest crystal.
This one also flows slowly...
but without any sound.
Deep down there is a lake...
very dark and deep...
where the two rivers meet.
Where they join, there are rocks...
making the waters foam...
afterwards to let them flow...
silently and slowly...
into that somber reservoir...
which lies in a deadly calm...
only troubled by an occasional ripple...
representing the struggle of the deaf-blind.
I don't know if you can understand this.
The rocks who tear the waters...
stand for the depression...
the blind and the deaf feel...
when they become deaf-blind.
I can't explain it any better...
but that's how I feel it.
For more than 2 years, Else Fährer...
lives in a neurological clinic.
She is 48.
Her mother, the only person...
who understood her, is dead.
Hello, my sister in destiny.
It's our sign.
She spent two years in a school for the blind...
where she learned braille, but she forgot.
Also no one else wanted to take her...
she's in this asylum, which isn't her place.
She withdrew into herself.
She never talks any more.
When she still had her mother...
she could understand by touching the lips.
But that's all over now.
She keeps looking at you.
For you, Else, for you.
She still looks at you.
I am deaf and blind...
like you...
deaf and blind.
Not a word.
Maybe that...
Blind...
deaf...
yes...
We're just alike.
Poor dear, no contact with the world.
She says nothing.
She can't speak any more.
No possibility of contact.
I am Fini Straubinger, from Munich.
Does she talk?
No, but she looks at you.
When you let go of my hand...
it is as if we were...
a thousand miles apart.
Another much neglected group...
unable to assert its rights...
in our affluent society...
where only production counts...
is the group of the disabled.
Society owes them more...
than just the right to live...
it owes them complete integration...
in various aspects.
In fact this is all about...
our moral attitude...
towards those people.
And frankly, this attitude...
still isn't up to the mark.
A society which doesn't respect old people...
as part of itself...
is condemning itself.
I was very much impressed.
I was very upset when the President...
came to me...
and then took my hand in his.
His hand was cool, not cold.
And while I was telling of our needs...
I felt the pressure of his hand...
as a sign of understanding.
This is what I told him: Mr. President...
think also of the deaf-blind...
get us out of our isolation.
Help us to find those...
who can break our loneliness.
Could you explain us...
the tactile translation?
It's a system of dashes and dots.
But you must take great care...
as to how to make them.
For instance, the short dots...
are made with a downward move...
- H, G, D, B -
P is an upward move...
For A, E, I, O, U...
you touch the top of the fingers.
4 fingers on the palm of the hand...
make up a K...
One horizontal dash...
- is a Z.
- Everything goes like that...
...O...
Y...
joy.
It's hard to understand.
Who makes you practice?
Practice?
Nobody.
My brother can't learn it.
You could talk to him.
He only speaks his dialect.
Fini visits Ursula and Joseph Riedmeier.
She is deaf and nearly blind.
She understands by following the lips.
You only speak your dialect.
You can't talk properly.
Her brother is blind, but has some hearing left.
You said you'd never learn...
the blind alphabet.
He said: Straubinger.
I brought him a money-box.
- Look...
- Joseph, I brought you...
a money-box.
To put in coins.
See how it works.
It's our natal home.
That's the vegetable garden.
That's the meadow.
Joseph often mowed it.
Poor man, what a work.
The wash...
Yes, of course...
I don't see anything.
I can't hear anything.
I'm just like you.
Ask if he understood.
Did you understand?
Sit straight!
You aren't that old.
It's the first time...
these deaf-blind visit a zoo.
They haven't touched an animal for a long time.
It isn't hard to give them pleasure...
but there aren't many people who will help.
Can we take it out?
You can do it.
You're nice.
Can I hold it?
What will its mother say?
DEAF-BLIND BY BIRTH
This is Harald, Miss Straubinger.
One of my first pupils.
He came here 5 years ago.
He was a wild child...
upsetting everything.
It was very hard to give him the habit...
of a daily sequence...
to teach him tasks.
It took a year...
to give him some notions...
of the tactile alphabet.
Helen Keller says...
that this discovery...
is the spiritual birth of the deaf-blind.
That really is the start...
of education for those children.
Michael, sitting there beside you...
still hears a bit.
We used the vibration method...
discovered by the Americans.
He touches the lips of the one talking...
and he repeats the word.
It's a car with a trailer.
It's very difficult...
to guess at the thoughts of our pupils...
how they think, what they feel.
We can only guess at it.
I still remember my visit...
about two years ago.
Harald was a little devil.
He was fascinated by watches.
It's much harder still...
to teach them abstract ideas.
We give them practical examples.
When we want to explain the meaning of "good"...
we say: Harald gets up...
Harald learns, Harald helps Sabine...
Harald is good.
Then we show him the opposite: Harald hits Sabine...
Harald takes something away from Sabine...
Harald is bad.
That's how we teach them...
good and bad.
Now let's go into the water.
Harald was afraid of water.
It took a year...
to get him to go in.
Now I want him to get in by himself.
We use hearing aids for diction courses
so they can feel the sound waves.
But even when they can speak a sentence...
they can't be taught abstract ideas.
What they understand as "proud, happy" etc...
will always be a mystery to us.
Vladimir Kokol is 22, deaf-blind by birth.
Only his father cared for him.
He never had any special training.
It was never tried to awaken him.
He never learned to walk.
He only takes soft food...
which he presses between the tongue and the palate.
There he is.
Hello, Vladimir.
That's to indicate I'm here.
We can still get something out of him.
He will never learn to talk...
but maybe to interpret signs.
I noticed that sometimes...
he presses his nails into my hand.
But he does that because...
he has no other way to communicate.
It's not to hurt me.
Don't hurt me, little one.
Look, he gives me the other hand.
That is a radio.
He likes it, he feels something living.
Is it music?
How do you get him to sleep?
How does he know night from day?
That's difficult for the deaf-blind.
They don't adapt to that sequence.
Does he know if it's day or night?
No, but when it's time to sleep...
we take him to bed.
And he goes to sleep?
Can he dress by himself?
No, he can't.
Now he reacted.
I must talk.
He'll get to something.
Be a good boy.
I think he's bored.
Heinrich Fleischmann, 51...
lives in a home for the aged, with his mother...
since about 5 years.
He was deaf by birth and lost his sight at 35.
He was so much neglected by his family...
that he forgot how to speak and write.
Rejected by human society...
he looked for the company of animals.
He lived with the cows in a stable for a long time.
He's looking for my hand.
He's looking for his mother.
He knows my ring.
We want...
- to talk... a bit.
- Can he talk?
If he could see the lips...
he would be able to talk.
When he could see I talked to him.
5 years ago, in the winter...
I put his hand into the snow...
and he said: Snow.
But I've lost contact.
Sometimes he says a word.
But it's very rare.
Did he ask who we were...
since our last visit?
- No.
- He doesn't even know his brothers.
Not even his own brothers?
No, he doesn't know who they are.
He doesn't want to see strangers.
Yet he must have...
There is much I don't know...
Good-bye.
Did you say good-bye?
Yes, I said it.
If a worldwide war would break out now...
I wouldn't even notice it.
Ripped by: SkyFury