The Stasi-Prison Tour

 The Stasi-Prison

Me inside the first prison building.

Today Nicole and I went to the Statsi-Prison Gedenkstatte (memorial) site. Nicole is very familiar with the state of Germany after WWII and the rise of the Soviet Union as she grew up here and was taught the history as well as lived some of it. But to me most of the information is new.

It is hard to think that right after one extreme, another extreme was presented to Eastern Germany. Many people left Eastern Germany to get to West Germany to prevent being under the ruling of the Soviet Union. I learned a lot from the tour, but be cautious because this is my re-telling of what I leaned and at some points may be misspeaking.

1939 Brick building turned into Special Camp No. 3

The first buildings rooms (cells)

The place where we toured was where the Soviet Union took people that were against them or had different political views that did not support the communist party. The people would just be "kidnapped" and taken to this place and have no idea where they were and would be interrogated. They Soviet Union worked out of this old brick building on the left that was once a kitchen and eventually it turned into a Soviet Interment Camp called "Special Camp No. 3".

There were 91,000 hired employees (Stasi's) who work as spies of the people breaking into houses, listening to conversations, using video to film activity within houses, etc. Any activity that either showed to be against the dictatorship or any planning on escaping East Germany resulted in being captured and taken to one of the prisons.

In the 40's and 50's the conditions were terrible. The camp would at times hold about 4,200 people at once in poor conditions with little food provided. The old cells had only a wooden bunk and a bucket for waste. Up to fourteen people was normal in a room and the bucket was only emptied once a day.

Physical and psychological violence was common to the prisoners. Many would sign confessions just

in hopes of being set free or to stop the torture.

The picture to the left here is a replica of the a torture tool used. It would drop water on your head constantly and if you got tired your face would fall in water.

In the fifties they stopped most of the physical torture and had most of the inmates in bad conditions, but conditions that were better than the original, they had toilets available for their use. Only the individual's who spoke against the Soviets or wouldn't cooperate while in prison would be punished in physically damming ways (but it was up to the guards who was deserving).
 
 To hear some of the stories being told and all the information made me so sad for the people of East Germany. To live in a world that is not free is almost imaginable to me. It made me feel so grateful to know that my government is not spying and to know

Right before strip was cells, left of strip is interrogation rooms

These are the newer rooms

that I have the ability to speak my mind and have an opinion of my and i don't have to worry about what might happen to me for thinking my own way.

Some of the prisoners who were kept here are the ones who actually give the tours. It must be so hard for them to return here and walk around the place where they were kept against their will. This tour was very educational and eye opening to the horrors that occurred after WWII and provided the reasons of the Cold War.

To think that it all only ended twenty-three years ago! People were still imprisoned here in the 1980's!

Me leaving a cell

An interrogation room