Original subtitles

Decomposition of the soul

When I showed my ID, I thought:

It's probably someone else.

Maybe one of those who were in the car,

One of my friends.

Someone else, not me.

But it was me they were after.

And no one else.

I'm innocent,

so all will soon be settled,

all will be cleared,

and it won't be that terrible.

An intimidation,

a warning,

a warning shot,

trees,

crossings,

the smell of seats,

noises of a car not driving faster

than regulations allow.

Where are you taking me?

You'll see.

In 1963, on a winter morning,

I wanted to go to my work

and I was heading towards the bus stop

to go to work.

Two men asked for my ID

and before I could get it out of my pocket,

they grabbed my arms.

A black limousine arrived and I was pushed inside.

I was taken to Berlin-Lichtenberg in the Magdalenenstrasse.

22 hours later they made me climb into a lorry

to take me somewhere.

I didn't know where.

I was alone in the lorry, in a dark cell without light.

Then, suddenly,

the door opened and they got me out.

I was suddenly in a very bright place.

My eyes hurt, I couldn't find my bearings,

I didn't know what I was seeing on the wall.

I don't know how I managed to see the three steps

I had to climb to be brought to the building where the cells were.

We are here in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen.

From this garage,

we went on through this corridor.

The doors were closed of course.

behind this door was...

...a fully equipped control room

destined to control the cells

and the work of the guards.

The transports were probably organized and planned in this room.

We are now in the detention area.

The cell wing began beyond this gate.

Here were two guards in uniform

who asked me to undress.

When they shouted "Faster!",

I undressed

to my underwear, they shouted "All!".

I startled, just as they wanted.

After that, I had to go naked into this room.

Here was the "chief receptionist",

if you could call this a reception.

He shouted: "Come in! Faster!" and "Bend over!"

So I had to bend over.

They examined every orifice of my body

and I had to give up all of my personal belongings

and even my name.

They asked my name, I told them it was Hartmut Richter.

The guard screamed "You are nr 48, remember that".

From then on, the guards

only addressed me by this number.

Everything is as you imagined it.

That's what's frightening... and commonplace.

They are three and you are alone.

They don't answer the questions

or get away with readymade answers.

They give orders you have to obey.

A strange will dominates you,

diminishes you.

In the name of a "Ministry",

of a "State",

of a "Right".

But those who express it are men.

Men with heads, arms and legs,

men like you.

The difference with you is something invisible,

usurped,

controlled from a distance:

power.

They have "the power" and you don't.

"Lie down!" is what they begin with.

"On your belly."

"We are the strongest."

"Lie down!" is what they should say.

But they don't say it.

At least not straight away.

We had to sit on a stool, when we woke up in the morning.

But even then, we couldn't lean on the wall.

I couldn't lean on my left,

nor could I lean backwards,

my body couldn't relax.

It was also forbidden,

as it was a rule in all cells

to lay your hands on the table and to rest your head on them.

You always had to be seated in an uncomfortable way.

It was most frustrating

not to be allowed to do anything.

First, we had no personal belongings,

we weren't allowed to read or lie down during the day.

We weren't allowed to speak to a lawyer.

During the pre-trial detention,

I couldn't speak to a lawyer.

Nor could I write.

So, no information could go out,

or come in.

Where is the window?

Where on earth is the window?

It's not a window,

two rows of polished glass bricks

with a slit between them.

And breathing,

how can one breathe?

You can't do that.

Yes, they can.

They do.

And not only with you.

Don't think they only do it to you

and that they only do it here.

In January 1961, our son was born. He was a wanted child.

At birth he had problems that couldn't be solved in the East.

So he was treated in a hospital in West Berlin,

where the treatment was successful.

Then they built the Wall.

And I was separed from my baby,

from my suffering child.

I couldn't go and visit him.

Since then it is as if the Wall had crossed my heart.

In the beginning,

the GDR authorities didn't give me any hope

to possibly go and see my son.

Only nine weeks later did I receive my first permit,

but for a very short time.

You always had to fight to obtain a permit.

I received once a month,

but it was never certain.

Yet, I always returned home,

because of my husband couldn't go with me.

And I would never have misused such a permit.

As a child I admired Lenin.

I wanted to build the first German labour and farm state.

But in time I became more critical and came into conflict

with the people in power in the GDR.

People from the Ministry of State Security.

My second attempt to escape succeeded

through the Teltow channel in August 1966.

In West Berlin, I learned to work as a waiter.

Then I worked for a few years as a steward on a boat

until the early seventies.

Then, with the detente policy and the agreements of 1972,

controls on transit roads had stopped,

So I was tempted...

At first, I only wanted to help a few friends flee,

but little by little the circle grew larger

and I got some 33 people out.

On March 4th 1975, they controlled me

as a suspect at the Drewitz checkpoint.

They caught me with my sister in a trunk.

So I landed in a pre-trial centre

of the State Security, first in Potsdam, then here.

When the light is turned off in the cell,

darkness does not fall,

neither does night.

When the ceiling lamps are off,

the guard lights the lamp above the door

to see from outside, through the peephole,

what is happening in cell 117.

If he doesn't see any irregularities,

if the prisoner is lying eyes closed

or eyes open, which is not forbidden,

or sitting on the toilets

he turns off the light and proceeds to other cells.

He does his round

and after few minutes, he's back to examine cell 117,

and so on until morning.

When the light is turned off in the cell,

darkness does not fall,

neither does night.

To sleep,

to disconnect,

to turn towards the wall.

So what?

My dear friend,

we've got plenty of time.

It's serious.

You'll regret it.

Maybe there won't be a warrant.

They can hold you for 24 hours.

Tomorrow round 11.

Maybe there won't be a warrant.

The name of your enemy is hope,

amnesty,

liberation,

tomorrow maybe.

He wants to destroy you,

he wants you to hope,

to be disappointed,

to be broken.

To disconnect,

to turn towards the wall.

Immediately, it's necessary.

"Beast have caves

and birds in the sky have nests."

ENEMY:

People who, as a group or individuals,

develop positions and ideological conceptions

foreign to Socialism

and aim to realise those conceptions

through their behaviour and by creating the conditions

that endanger or harm,

as a whole or in particular, society and the State.

In accordance to its mission, the State Ministry for Security

is responsible for the fight against enemy actions.

The enemy's forms and angles of attack

require to deplete all the means available in the socialist society

to maintain the power.

Dictionary of Political Operative Work

Every corridor had a red line.

You had to wait on it facing the wall,

hands behing your back.

Here, you see this empty cell.

You could be locked up here.

When someone came, it was signalled by this red light,

until he'd gone.

The idea was to never meet another prisoner.

Big Brother is above the door:

there were cameras everywhere!

This means that even the guards were controlled.

Anyway, it was highly qualified personnel,

who received training at least once a week.

They were programmed

to be the shield and sword of the working class party

whereas the inmates would be rubbish forgotten by History.

The victory of socialism was proved scientifically

by people like Marx and Engels.

Now we are going to the photographing room...

That fear

In the middle of the line:

If my pencil

Breaks

Before all is said

But

Who will hear me

If I keep silent?

Why are you walking so fast?

You're following a uniform

that holds two keys in its right hand,

two keys ringing while climbing the stairs.

Why do you follow this stranger obediently?

Because he has opened your cell and said "come"?

Because there's something to say?

Here in these stairs,

with little lamps everywhere.

Wires along the walls,

white lines on the floor,

a room for dolls, electrified by a caring father.

Another wing of the building:

steel doors,

then the perfumed smell of offices

and a very long corridor that splits up,

doors to the right and left,

no locks, no iron frameworks,

little panels with the office numbers,

with three digits.

This is where they are,

"The Castle",

"The Trial".

Kafka,

you guessed it,

we live it.

Only the metamorphosis doesn't occur,

you stay a man,

staring at those doors,

and you quickly follow that uniform.

This is where they are.

The stool stood behind the door, in the corner.

You had to sit on it.

I was ordered to put my hands under my thighs.

It was forbidden to lean sideways against the wall,

as well as backwards.

But during the entire interrogation,

interrogations often lasted between three to five hours,

I realised I needed my hands.

So that my concentration wouldn't diminish

I needed to move my hands.

It was terrible not to use them.

It was one of their methods

to tire us quickly.

We were interrogated 2 or 3 nights a week.

To keep us from sleeping.

This deprivation of sleep was constantly used.

Another psychic torture the State Security had invented.

And I noticed, when I didn't know what to do,

that I'd build an imaginary wall around me.

Then nothing could touch me anymore.

To save time.

You undergo a shock.

You don't know what they want.

Cut off all communication.

Don't say stupid things. Force oneself to remain calm.

To observe.

Save time.

Keep silent.

The interrogator tries to resume several times.

Friendly, flattering,

spiritual, objective,

hateful, mocking,

indifferent, nervous.

He leaves the room,

comes back,

opens a safe,

covers the desk with a mountain of files.

It's a peculiar feeling to ignore a man who speaks,

not to react to language,

to avoid a dialogue which the other wants.

Your behaviour leaves you ill at ease.

You want to speak, to answer,

but the central says: stop,

it's useless, keep silent.

Think of something else.

To get out of the cell,

even for interrogation was a link to outside world.

I obviously hoped to have news about my sister.

Sometimes we received letters, already opened and read.

If there was coffee,

I knew they'd use the soft method. It always changed.

In the beginning, I still smoked.

Sometimes there was a ashtray and Western cigarettes.

Later, I stopped so I wouldn't be addicted.

If the table was empty and the interrogator serious,

it was the other method. The methods would alternate.

It isn't only about smoking a cigarette

it is about asking this man for one.

He wants to know if you are ready to humiliate yourself,

to ask him a favour while he offends you

and considers you an enemy.

An already existing addiction

would then reach a personal context.

Conditions are imposed, you have to meet them:

you get the cigarette

only if you have expressed the desire

in a friendly way if possible

and with gratitude,

like kindergarden

where you were taught to say "please".

You'll get some candy,

but first you have to say "please".

"Please".

Classical conditioning.

Here, to obtain devout respect,

submission, correct behavior.

And after the first kneeling,

they prepare the second:

You receive cigarettes and coffee

if you say this or that,

if you sign these minutes.

You're not a heavy smoker

but if you'd smoked fifty a day outside

and had to do without for days and weeks,

you'd surely be surprised to hear this muttering.

The big mistake:

"It's only about a cigarette."

No,

it's about the whole thing,

especially in these seemingly insignificant situations.

Decomposition measures should always start at the weakest point.

By attacking the weakest point,

you aim at harming the person severely,

in order to trigger a chain reaction

that frees new differences and contradictions

and creates a basis for futher decomposition measures.

By "the weakest point"

we mean sensitive points

that are important to the person concerned,

related to subversive action,

in private or social area, and that are vulnerable.

Two weeks after my arrest, I had my birthday,

my first birthday in this prison.

Of course, they took me for interrogation

and the interrogator talked about my husband.

He said:

"You know your husband is here too.

"He's better off than you right now.

"He's in good hands and in a very comfortable cell

"and he's not alone.

"There's something attractive in his cell."

He wanted to make me jealous

and to influence my mood.

They want to destroy your sense of orientation,

your stability.

People you appreciate most are slandered.

Here, everything you hold dear should lose its meaning.

First, you have to doubt your own human values.

Their aim is to give you a new role

that you'll play first

and then live.

Some people always say:

Man can't be changed by force.

But they say:

Don't be so sure of that,

we know our job and we have plenty of time.

Imagine being stuck here for days, weeks, months,

and there's nothing you can do...

We'd always try to find

some distraction.

I remember I'd found a thread.

I must have pulled it from a blanket,

I don't remember where I found it.

I started making motifs on my thigh with it.

We wore trousers

and I started drawing motifs on them.

It probably took me away from the daily routine.

Suddenly, the cell door opened,

a guard entered and took the thread.

Then he took my mattress away, without any explanation!

So, I had no mattress for 3 days.

Since you don't know when they'll interrogate you,

you're constantly waiting.

Today they won't come to get you,

but they are the only ones to know.

Suddenly, the door may open.

Suddenly, someone may stand in front of the door and say or do something.

"Suddenly", that's what they expect.

They know that you are always on alert

and that you can't calm down.

Today they won't come, but you don't know that.

Only in the evening do you know no one came

to open the door of your cell.

You wait an entire day.

You record every noise in the corridor.

Sometimes you're startled,

when the other cell doors open and close.

Today they won't come to get you,

but you don't know that.

Only tomorrow will you be able to say

no one came yesterday,

nobody came to get me.

DECOMPOSITION

TRUST RELATIONSHIP

HATE:

Intense and deep feeling

that can profoundly determinate's Man action.

It always reflects antithetic human relationships

and is socially the emotional expression of class contrast

and the irreconcilable interests between working class and bourgeoisie.

Hate always aims at a confrontation with the hated enemy,

isn't limited to detesting and avoiding him,

but is often linked to the need to destroy or harm him.

Hate is a basis for the passionate

and incompatible struggle with the enemy.

Hate is also a strong and lasting motivation for action.

Hence, it must be consciously used

and reinforced through conspiring work,

as an incentive for difficult operative duties.

We had taken in three young students

who had to go through a tunnel between East and West Berlin.

Unfortunately, they were arrested.

To take them in was considered a crime.

The interrogations were the same:

time and again, they wanted to prove you had broken the GDR laws.

So you had to feel guilty.

It reccured in almost every interrogation.

The Stasi's mission

was to make people feel guilty

in order to justify their condemnation.

First we were interrogated around the clock.

But after weeks and months in cell, you think:

What else do they want, they've proof enough...

In my case they wanted to make me "cooperative".

So, the discussions evolved around my youth in the GDR.

They had to know which of my friends

was in an opposition group.

So they tried to make you collaborate.

Being of "bad will" or "against them",

you became their enemy

and you were destroyed, "decomposed".

DECOMPOSITION:

Operative method by State Security

to efficiently fight subversive action.

With decomposition,

influence is exerted on the enemy

through political operative activities,

mainly on negative enemy convictions,

to shake him and slowly transform him.

The aim of decomposition is fragmentation, paralysis,

to disorganise and isolate the negative enemy forces

and thus allow a political-ideological recuperation.

The main executing forces of decomposition are the I.M.,

"Inofizielle Mitarbeiter"

"Non-official collaborators".

Between the interrogation wing and the cell wing,

there were specially equipped cells.

These cells were used

by "Non-official collaborators".

Who were they?

There were, of course, "I.M." in prison as all over in GDR.

Over 90.000 "Official collaborators"

and about 200.000 "Non-official collaborators".

They were inmates who had promised to amend themselves,

hoping for advantages or an anticipated release.

These "Non-official collaborators", or "Cell informers",

were put in the cells of other prisoners.

The Stasi got information it hadn't extirpated

during the interrogation.

You see those two padded doors.

As you can see, it's cosy, with curtains.

You couln't look out the window

but, compared to the cell, it was quite nice.

You had coffee, cakes and other advantages.

Here "informers" could write down

what they had learned from their cell companions.

TRUST RELATIONSHIP:

A trust relationship mainly develops on the knowledge of the partner,

on emotional assistance

and on trust in his opinions.

In political-operative activity,

we talk of a trust relationship

between an "official collaborator" and an I.M.

The aim is total trust between the I.M. and the official collaborator,

whereas the official collaborator, in his relation to the I.M.,

mustn't neglect the aspects of security and control.

Between the I.M. and the person to watch over,

we talk of a trust relationship

to say that the person to watch over

totally trust the I.M.,

while the I.M. pretends to trust him.

Isolation for weeks, months is terrible.

You're happy to see the arrival

of a companion to share strength and hope.

Then, after a while,

you feel something wrong, he looks away...

But I got it quickly...

Living confined in a small space with someone becomes difficult.

And finally you'd rather be left alone.

When I arrived in the cell,

my neighbour was allowed to lie down,

which was a special favour.

Cell regulations weren't as hard for her as for me,

and she was often brought elsewhere.

Before leaving she'd say:

"Don't bother taking a meal for me at noon,

"I'm not very well..."

I quickly noticed she wasn't losing weight.

So she must have been fed elsewhere.

And she smelled of coffee and smoke,

which justified my distrust.

Only much later,

did I learn she was a "cell informer".

When she had to leave the cell,

she went to write reports on our conversations.

To be alone,

even if you're not:

they pace the floor in front of the cell and look inside.

You hear their steps and their keys,

you feel their looks.

Around you, walls and shut doors

don't protect you, but deliver you to them

to hold you in a place where you can't hide,

escape from their looks, their intentions.

Get over the paralysis:

I try to write on the plastic table with my fingers.

If I press, I can recognise some letters.

It can't leave any visible trace,

but it's a way to obtain a form of "simulated writing",

to carry my thoughts through,

to describe feelings,

to write what I hear.

Even if it can't be read easily

- I write with silver paper on a plastic table -

what I formulate is in my head.

At least most of it.

I also reproduce poems,

compose small anthologies,

update what is already written.

I also sing in a low voice sometimes.

Observation:

the interrogator can make the phone ring

and feign conversations.

According to my observations, the knob is under the desk.

When the interrogator calls himself,

he oddly smiles at the beginning and at the end,

very artificially.

The phone has various purposes:

the accused, sitting in the same room, avid for information, listen.

Ludicrously, chosen information is passed on him,

allusions, false news...

Who had that idea? When?

Did he say it immediately? Did he hesitate?

Who approved of it?

Was there some opposition?

Who built it?

Who had that idea, what's his face like?

Does he feel like an inventor, in the morning, rinsing his teeth?

Does his neighbour know?

Do others have such idea?

How many are they? More than ten?

Is their number growing?

The furniture was made of hollow spaces,

traps you couldn't open or close.

These hollow spaces contained bugs and recorders.

Every inmate had to expect

interrogations to be recorded. But even the interrogator,

if he knew his trade, had to expect to be spied upon

without being informed or warned.

Where did these records go?

Here you see the "remains" of the installation.

where the main lines came together

and were connected to the building next door.

Behind this door was a prefab building

where about 500 State security officers worked.

All the intelligence gathered was treated there.

From here, they'd act in the "operative area",

West Germany, West Berlin, in capitalist countries.

They'd take "measures", elaborate "plans", etc.

The interrogators were specially selected persons, trained,

socially perfect.

As of the seventies, besides Law,

they had to study "operative psychology".

Recently, I read a thesis entitled:

Decomposing Enemy Identity and Obtaining Confessions.

One morning I was taken from my cell

and brought to Berlin-Lichtenberg in a lorry.

A man came on, in plain clothes,

he spoke to me, I'd lost the habit...

Then he told me he'd studied my case.

He said the Stasi couldn't keep me imprisoned,

they had to send me home.

And so conditioned,

I was brought back to my cell in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen.

Once I was back, I naturally thought:

"If the cell door opens now, I'll go home."

I was confused,

I could only think of my liberation.

But the cell door didn't open.

It didn't open in the evening, nor the next day,

nor did it the next week.

It took three weeks for the door to open again,

for an interrogation.

The interrogator asked me: "You must want to see your son?"

Surprised, I replied: "Of course!

"But I'm in a Stasi prison

"and he is in a West-Berlin clinic, how can I?"

He said, "Everything is possible for us, here's a permit."

He showed it, with another document,

When I asked questions,

the interrogator explained:

"We want you to meet a student you know in West-Berlin.

"After seeing your son, go to Charlottenburg Park."

Then he made a mistake.

He told me: "We'll take care of the rest."

My first thought was:

"Shall I be an accomplice or bait for a kidnapping?"

I braced myself and rebuilt the imaginary wall around me,

nothing could touch me.

They could say or give me what they wanted, I didn't react.

So they brought me back to brood in my cell.

To say no,

immediately,

without discussion.

But afterwards, you'll think it over,

just like that, to think of everything,

to consider all possibilities.

"To better your situation",

who wouldn't want to?

But to get out quickly like a pig,

will that better the situation?

You must think only of your cell,

of their faces.

To get out is all you must think of,

whatever the consequences.

I hear those screaming songs going right through me:

"The first betrayal is the only a weakness,

"for the second you'll ask a medal,

"for the third you'll kill,

"you'll have to kill."

There will be no excuse,

only fixed stares that will turn away,

and the silence of friends.

Don't play,

don't calculate.

You want to bear watching your face in the mirror.

To say no.

There's nothing to think about, you'll tell them.

But you've been thinking.

The trial was so disappointing and frustrating.

I really thought I'd be allowed to explain

how everything really happened.

But the judge constantly interruped me,

as did the public prosecutor.

The three young people were there too.

We were accused of being accomplices.

Finally, my husband and I were condemned to four years.

The students were sentenced very lightly.

Only later did I realise

that complicity

was sentenced more heavily.

thand escape itself.

I was condemned after one year pre-trial detention.

They had proven I had passed 18 people to the West,

"traffic of persons to destabilise the GDR."

I was sentenced to 15 years

in an in camera trial.

Bautzen II seemed to be the safest prison for me.

There, they told to the other inmates

that you were a spy, and other defamations...

We were supposed to feel abandoned,

forgotten and totally isolated.

After being sentenced,

I was transferred back from Rostock to Berlin,

here, in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen.

- I didn't know it was Hohenschönhausen.

I found out much later. -

I had to take part in a work commando.

But it was unusual because of the sentence

was followed by a detention in a traditional prison.

And Hohenschönhausen wasn't that.

During the time I was working in the cleaning team,

here in the cellar, they turned a cell

into a dental laboratory just for me,

so I could do my job...

We regularly heard strange noises.

There also was shouting.

Shouts I still can't forget.

Someone was always shouting down the hall.

Someone kept on shouting: "We'll never leave!"

Day and night. It was terrible.

It upset us a lot.

One day, they asked me to come out.

The guard gave me a bucket and a broom.

I followed him

to the so-called "Rubber room".

The guard who had to watch me had a pocket lamp.

He lighted the room while I cleaned it.

I remember the floor was dark red.

And I had to clean excrement and blood stains.

When I had finished cleaning. I was brought back.

Then I met the laundry woman.

She showed me a strait jacket with excrement

and blood stains.

Night is divided

It's green

It's a tree

High, above the streets

It's clear

It doesn't blind you

Over there is a path

I walk

I wave

No one gives me orders

When I live inside,

Deep inside myself,

There's a path

And words,

And an answer

That doesn't strike.

You couldn't see trees or bushes.

You couldn't see any leaves or birds flying.

The guards even pulled out the grass

that barely grew between the pavements, no green to be seen.

From the cell inside, we moved to one outside.

It was a very narrow space with high walls.

As a result,

when I was finally freed,

I couldn't look too far.

When I tried to look to the other side of the street,

I felt dizzy.

Outside,

in front of or behind my wall:

a swimming pool,

screams,

laughter,

water,

the trampoline springs,

guards bathing after work.

I recognise voices that usually say "come" or "dish".

Are there prisoners among them?

It overcomes me insidiously, paralyses me.

They bathe,

and what about me?

Others walk the streets,

go to the cinema,

drink tea, lie down,

drive cars,

and what about me?

The distance establishes

the doubt, the anger

against "them, outside"

and the reproach, the awful reproach.

"When they interrogated me,

"you were on the Baltic coast or at the theatre."

The destruction begins.

Friday, you'll be free.

But in West Berlin,

Friday?

In three days?

After nine months someone says:

Friday.

Shall I give in?

Shall I tell myself: why bother thinking?

Do I surrender if I leave?

Do I give up if I stay?

Couldn't the way out of this prison

be followed because it leads to another country?

Is there another way if I say no?

And if there is, where does it lead?

To a Friday in ten years?

And my friends?

Will I really leave if I'm made to?

What's left to think of?

You held on to your negative attitude

towards State security.

By doing so, you are cut off of the GDR.

We can release no one knowing

they'll do it again soon.

You'd quickly be shut away again.

Be happy to be offered this way out.

Finally, understand things and signs.

And never try to confront us again.

We'll find you anywhere. Even in the West.

There are car accidents everywhere.

You take this as a threat.

Well, yes. What else?

After 5 years and 6 months,

a prison officer came to my cell at Bautzen II

and told me to grab my things.

After 5 years and 6 months, I asked the educator

if my "educational process" was over.

I remember he grinned without answering.

On October 2nd, 1980,

I set foot in West Berlin again.

I am one of the 34.000 people sold to the FRG.

The GDR got rid of troublemakers by selling them.

They wanted to be paid for each concession.

So I was freed in West Berlin.

Suddenly, I stood in the street.

Suddenly, I was free.

They'd given me no liberation documents.

So that later, I'd be unable to prove

where I'd disappeared for all those months,

the 19 months I had spent in a Stasi prison.

They should have let us go to our son.

Mr. Vogel, the lawyer, had negociated our sale.

He'd been very terse and without giving any motive,

he told us "You'll never leave".

So we had to stay here in East Berlin,

still separated from our son,

who had to stay in hospital for months still.

We waited 11 more months to get him back.

My husband and I talked about our detention with our friends,

about our experience in a Stasi prison.

So, the Stasi continued to "observe" us,

the word they use in their jargon.

They watched the house, followed our daughters.

Teachers were informed...

We know now they wrote reports.

Every move our son made was also scrutinised.

Even us, my husband and I,

when we went to see the in-laws in Greifswald,

we always had the Stasi shadow over us.

When the Wall fell, having access to Stasi files,

I learned they'd spared no efforts.

Soon after being freed, I was said to be

"hostile in the operative zone".

Thinking back, I was surprised

to discover a "plan of measures"

saying that this time, "liquidation" mean assassination.

It was in 1984

and they had already taken steps in that direction.

It shows that, thinking back of it,

I knew Stasi plots by experience,

I had underestimated its danger:

the use of physical liquidation

and this, until the collapse of the GDR.

Discretely of course, nothing could leak.

This could explain why they didn't carry it out.

Among my close friends, my struggle companions

in human-rights associations,

some ex-inmates were spies,

working for the Stasi.

To think they surrounded me all those years

deeply shocked me afterwards

and disappointed me.

Since the Wall fell, I've been searching my interrogator.

While consulting the Stasi files,

I found his name in a file

and I insisted on talking to him.

After the talks we had in Saviour's Church,

I met some former Stasi officers.

Not long ago, in fact,

one of them told me

my interrogator did exist and lived here in Berlin,

but that he still "walled himself in".

I was disappoinded. I thought I could

speak with him freely, face to face,

but they're such cowards.

Here he had power, he humiliated me, but now,

in a free country he "walled himself in".

You can't see marks on the soul.

I mean, at first sight, you can't see

what people had to endure here.

Here, they replaced physical violence

with more subtle methods.

For months, they'd isolate, slander,

destroy, decompose, decompose the soul...

They used their intelligence to harm,

to "liquidate" in the sense of "to neutralise".

It was their goal.

When someone approaches me kindly, I mistrust him

and say: "what now?" It's fear of involvement...

It took my wife a lot of understanding.

I wouldn't have believed it was possible.

But you can only get over it slowly.

That's what I mean with marks on the soul, marks you can't see

at least not at first sight...

Writer and psychologist Jürgen Fuchs was arrested in 1976

for "Agitation against the State".

After nine months of pre-trial in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen,

he was expelled to the West against his will.

There he published "Minutes of a duel"

accounts of his detention and interrogations.

Jürgen Fuchs died in 1999 at the age of 48.

He was the third former GDR dissident

to die from a rare form of blood cancer.

Before dying, he suspected he'd been irradiated in prison,

during some photo sessions.

An investigation has shown that the Stasi

did use radioactive substances to "mark" objects and persons.

But today, instruction hasn't proven yet

the intention of murder by irradiation.

The worst is not

To sit in a cell

And be interrogated

Only later

When you facing a tree again

Or drinking a bottle of beer

And you want to rejoice

Really rejoice

Like before

Only then.

In 1945, the Soviet Army established

one of their special camps in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen.

In 1946, the Soviet Intelligence made it a central pre-trial prison.

In 1951, the Ministry of State Security of the GDR took it over

and built a new centre with more interrogation rooms than cells.

It remained operational till the Wall fell,

and was dismantled only in 1990.

It became a memorial in 1995.

Don't let your heart be hardened In these hard times

Those who are too hard break

Those who are too sharp sting And break at once

Don't let yourself be bitter In these bitter times

The mighty does not quiver At your suffering

But to see you behind bars

Don't let yourself be frightened In these frightenning times

It's what they're after

For us to lay down our weapons Before the great fight

Don't you let yourself be used But use your time

You can't hide

You need us as we need your joy

We don't want to silence it In these times of silence

Green grows from the branches

We want to show it to everyone So that they know

So that they know.