The Secret Stasi Prison in the Former East Berlin

The tram is warm and comfortable and the snowy landscape is pretty as it slides past. I begin to forget the sub-zero temperatures outside and secretly want the tram ride to go on forever. But after half an hour or so we reach the stop and I emerge into a cold and windy environment. The tram grinds off into the background. It’s too cold to stand around waiting for another one back into town and to the dismay of my empty stomach all of the little shops and restaurants in the nondescript modern buildings are closed for the public holiday. There’s nothing else for it but to begin walking down the long street that leads to the Hohenschönhausen prison. At first the landscape is suburban, but then the first few old administrative buildings of the facilty come into view and the view becomes grim. If this were happening thirty years earlier, I’d be walking off the edge of the map. This whole area was part of the web of lies, denial and paranoia spun by the former East German Communist Ministry of State Security, the Stasi. Officially, it did not exist. “You are free to take as many photos as you please, even of me,” is the first thing we are told as we enter the prison. To my mind, the message is clear that this man wants the history of this Stasi prison to be broadcast. I rattle off shots but the pace of the guiding is fast, and several times I am left behind and I race down the halls, my heart beating as I try to find where the group has gone and avoid being lost in this god-forsaken place.