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    Photos from Germany

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    The nerve centre of the prison was the surveillance room, which was rather advanced for its time. This was also the control centre for the prison's ingenious alarm system - wire was strung created across all walls, and a guard simply had to pull on the wire to trigger the alarm immediately. Perhaps the most striking thing about the surveillance room is that although it is clearly dated, the equipment found in there could conceivably still work today, serving as a reminder that all this happened not too long ago. Views[304] Although the Stasi did use physical torture especially in its earlier years, when Gilbert was imprisoned here they mainly using psychological torture instead. One of the methods used was sleep depravation by forcing prisoners to stand upright for long periods of time. Pictured here is one such “standing cell”, barely large enough for a person to fit. Another way the Stasi intimidated prisoners was through orchestrating “disappearances”. When he was arrested, Gilbert said that he felt he was as good as dead, as no one knew where he was or if he was even still alive. Views[1089] Like all other prisoners, Gilbert was interrogated here multiple times, and always without warning. They could come for you anytime of the day or night, and there was no official time limit on how long the sessions could last. The interrogation room's layout was designed to convey a sense of helplessness for the prisoner - the prisoner's table is slightly lower than that of the interrogator, and there would always be another interrogator seated behind to intimidate. Many former Stasi men were never persecuted and are out and about in Germany today. A few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gilbert actually accidentally ran into one of his interrogators at a departmental store in Berlin. Views[243] Gilbert Furian was a former inmate, arrested in 1985 for writing about the punk subculture in the former East Germany. Such activity was considered to be against the interests of East Germany, and he was sentenced to two years and two months for his “crime”. Gilbert has since obtained the file the Stasi kept on him, and he showed some of the material he was imprisoned for as well as his Stasi mug shots. Views[586] Genslerstrasse, Berlin. Tucked away in a leafy Berlin suburb lies an unassuming compound surrounded by guard towers and barbed wire. Formerly an infamous Stasi prison, it is now home to the Berlin- Hohenschönhausen Memorial. Stepping through the heavy metal door into one of the cellblocks, the air is cold and damp, and the bright afternoon sunshine outside seems to have been consumed by a much darker world. This particular block was nicknamed the “submarine”, as it is underground and does not get much natural light. Views[495]
     

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