Wolfgang.

Last Friday, the FU-Besters went on our last required excursion--this time to the Stasi Prison Hohenschönhausen. I think this was a much harder experience then the previous week's trip--Sachsenhausen--and I have a few theories for that. Firstly, it was rainy, dreary and cold. Everything looks bleaker in bad weather, especially awful places. Secondly, it was all still standing. Much of the concentration camp had been torn down and while it did not take away from the awful-ness of what had been there--I am not trying to demean the strength it takes to visit a concentration camp--the fact that the buildings were still intact made it seem much more real and recent. Also, I think Holocaust Germany is generally what most people think about when they think about 20th century German history. Then the Cold War happened. Then David Hasselhoff sang on top of the Berlin Wall and all was well again, yay Germany. The Stasi, at least for me, was a part of history I knew about, but definitely not as much as I thought I did. The prison then was much more of a shock to me I think because I was not expecting the horrors there like I was at Sachsenhausen.

The last and most important reason why I found this excursion so difficult, and probably also so much more meaningful and intensely informative, was Wolfgang, our guide. Our larger group was split into two smaller groups--one who spoke enough German and were going to have a German speaking tour guide, and our group, which had Stephen to translate for our guide. Let me paint this picture for you: Wolfgang is probably in his 60s. He is wearing a black sweater vest and the top of a black and gray striped tie is popping out the top. On top of that, a black leather jacket. His hair is grey and he speaks no English, or at least not a lot, and he is a former prisoner of Hohenschönhausen. During the quick rundown we got through Stephen, Wolfgang is a West Berliner who was arrested in Bulgaria for helping someone cross the border. He spent a year imprisoned there and 4 weeks in Hohenschönhausen with intense interrogation before he was even charged or tried and then he was sent back to Bulgaria to serve his sentence, which I believe was another year and some months.

Wolfgang was very knowledgable about all aspects of the prison, the older part and the newer part. The older part, which closed after Stalin's death, was focused on physical torture. The rooms were dark, crowded, and contained a bucket and a too-small wooden bench as a bed. Men were physically tortured by Chinese Water Torture, where they have to kneel in a horribly uncomfortable position and put their head between two buckets and have water drip into the same spot on their head for a half hour, and apparently after some time it starts to feel like a sledgehammer, or by the standing rooms, where they stood naked and had cold water dropped over them in a room with uncomfortable slats jutting out from the wall so that they would stand for up to 3 days.

Women were asked if they wanted a warm cell or a cold cell--the warm cell would be unbearably hot with no water to drink, and the cold cell unbearably cold with no coverings. Then during interrogation, they would be offered water if they confessed.

The newer building, where Wolfgang was imprisoned, focused on psychological torture. They were completely isolated from all the other prisoners, even to the point where they couldn't see anyone else in the hall. Wolfgang told us a number of ways they would communicate however--tapping on the walls in morse code, or they would take the water out of the toilets and could communicate with the prisoner above them. He also told us about the informants disguised as other prisoners--sometimes, a prisoner would be put in a two person cell and the other person would be trained in informal interrogation and try to get information out of the prisoner. Apparently, they tried this tactic with Wolfgang and he saw through it. He said he only knew something was wrong because he wasn't a new prisoner and why would they do this all of a sudden--but even when he was saying this, he still looked proud of himself for besting the man. Good for him, I say.

Wolfgang then showed us an interrogation room and explained the many styles of interrogation they would use--much like "good cop, bad cop." When they were good cop-ing, his interrogator would have his West German cigarettes on the table or once they gave him a piece of cake. But it was always give and take--once you were given something you wanted, you were expected to give them what they want. They would make the phone ring in front of them with a button under the desk and say that your wife was in danger, your father had a heart attack, your children were being taken away. You were already deprived of sleep, of contact, of basic human needs--you were likely to confess to anything after a certain amount of time. Wolfgang told us, chuckling to himself, how he threw a plate against the wall after he was told his accusers were in the other room, yelling to see who they were. The only reason he wasn't punished was his return to Bulgaria had already been arranged.

I couldn't decide whether it warmed my heart or made me pity Wolfgang more that he could joke about interrogation or the Stasi. It takes a strong person to come back to your prison every day and give tours talking about the atrocities committed against yourself and other people just like you. Then to chuckle about your own experiences, your own smashing of a plate in the interrogation room, your own addiction to the cigarettes on the table, your own wife used against you--how far you must have come, how far he must have come since those dark days of his life. I did decide that Wolfgang must've been a badass back then and still is a bit of one now, and again, good for him. As Elena told me on Friday, I hope he's led a good life.