After our flight from Dusseldorf to Berlin, we caught a train into the centre of Berlin and then out again to our hotel. We didn’t realise at the time, but our hotel is not at all close to the main area of Berlin, if you consider say the central station to be the centre. Instead, we’re rocking the suburbs about 30mins by train.
At first we were a bit aprehensive, but once we had a quick look, saw the houses were more like mansions and then were checked in by extremely friendly staff, we started to feel better about it. It also helped that a few minutes walk away, there’s an Italian restaurant where we ate last night. Nothing in Italy we had compared to that food last night. Unbelievably good! And cheap! Liking it so far…
We’ve decided we really like the idea of living in the suburbs as opposed to right in the centre. It’s extremely quiet and you can see how the locals live… well the rich ones around here anyway!
This morning we awoke to another friendly staff member who was very keen to chat to us about our travels and help us out with what we should see & do whilst in Berlin. We told her of some ideas a girl on the train last night had given us and she agreed with them plus gave us some more.
So today’s activities consisted of traveling to the east side of Berlin to do a tour of a Soviet run internment camp/prison that existed between 1951 and 1990 called Hohenschönhausen. The guide (it was in English thankfully) told of the absolute horror that went on in that facility. It’s incredibly interesting to hear, but too long to go into now, so here’s the highlights…
- The Soviets after WW2 (when it was East & West Germany) rounded up political prisoners who were thought to be against the Soviet Union or who considered a threat in some way. It didn’t matter what the threat was. An example of this was a teenage girl drew a circle on a painting of Stalin with red lipstick in a classroom and someone saw her do it, reported it to the police and she was arrested. She served 8 years of a 10 year sentence for that
- The facility was a way for the Soviets and then the Secret Service to gain more information from the prisoners/detainees by torturing them, physically until the mid-1950s and then psychologically until it was closed in 1990. So things like sleep deprivation, 30-hour interrogation sessions, being made to stand for hours, or even days on end… All designed to get people to talk – whether they knew anything or not
- The conditions were horrendous. The cells were tiny and hugely overcrowded, nowhere near enough rations and hygene was never thought of (jar for a toilet, shower once a month etc). The inmates were often kept in isolation, the cells had no heating or cooling, the old section was underground and were wet with ground water constantly, 1 bed for 5 people and no mattress and you couldn’t sleep on the ground due to the water… you get the idea
- They outgrew the old area, which was originally a canteen turned into a jail of sorts, so our guide said they started arresting skilled people who could help them build a new jail. Convicted prisoners from another jail were then used to build the jail that the skilled detainees had been forced to design. As you can see, they didn’t need any just cause, they did what they wanted
- All of this cruel punishment and conditions were designed to get confessions from often innocent members of the public. They had to get a confession so their methods and identities of those interrogating etc wouldn’t need to be divulged in a court. The sentencing was done by a Judge, however the sentence recommendation came from the Minister himself, so the Judges always complied with the recommendation for fear of being put in their himself
In the end, even after all this was done, very little was ever learnt and most of it was a huge waste of time and effort. The stat that amazed us the most was that even though the people held were kept in those attrocious conditions with almost no contact with even other detainees let alone family, no-one “cracked” and agreed to a false confession without being in that hell-hole for at least 6 months. 6 months! 20,000 detainees went through there, 488 officially died of starvation/mistreatment or lack of medical help (3,000 is the figure most believe) yet they all lasted at least 6 months before saying they did something that they didn’t. Some lasted without ever saying anything! The sheer mental toughness to get through that is beyond belief.
A few cool aspects of the tour itself is that the prisoners asked that the Government open the facility to the general public so they can see what happened and to never allow anything like this to happen again. Many of the tour guides, sadly not ours, are ex-detainees who want to share their experiences and tell their stories. It’s almost totally open where you can go into the cells, some empty, some with what the detainees had, the interrogation rooms, they have artifacts of all the equipment they used (some was very advanced for the day)… It doesn’t take much imagination to think just how awful it would have been. And for only 5euros each, it’s very affordable too. Highly recommended!
Interested in more of it? Here’s Wikipedia’s page on it and some more information here…
(one quick note – I’m writing this all from memory based on my understanding of what our guide said. If any of it is inaccurate – let me know in the comments! Thanks!)
For the rest of the day/evening, we went back into the centre of Berlin and walked around, checked out what was happening and grabbed a bite to eat at a popular local pub bursting at the seams with locals.
All in all, a very enjoyable and interesting day!
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