What Should You Know Before Visiting a Former Prison?

As written above, I have no images from the very senstive visit at Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial.  My source to the text below comes from Wikipedia

When World War II ended, the Soviet Union converted the Hohenschönhausen area into a transit camp and prison and called it Special Camp III. Such dictatorships need to either permanently get rid of their enemies or isolate them in camps so that they cannot speak out.

The transit camp closed in 1946 and the place continued to function as a prison until 1947. In 1951, the STASI – the East German security police – took over the camp and they slowly expanded it and finally in the 80s it was almost a city in itself. The center of the area was the prison. Not all GDR citizens knew what the area was, and the area did not appear on maps of Berlin either. The prison was used to lock up people who had tried to escape from the GDR and to hold political prisoners. The prison also had its own hospital but also treated prisoners from other STASI prisons. It became a huge area of several square kilometers. The prison was closed on October 3, 1990, the same day that the reunification of the FRG and the GDR took place.

Hohenschönhausen was an important part of the repression of citizens who did not comply. The torture was not physical but psychological and it is actually more effective. There was a question of disturbing the prisoners’ sleep, threats to involve family members, placing prisoners in cells with water on the floor and thus preventing sleep, rubber cells, which are small cells where all surfaces are covered with soft surfaces, so that the prisoner cannot harm himself.

Hohenschönhausen Memorial was founded in the 90s by former prisoners. Some of the guides who show you around today have themselves been imprisoned here. They ask that visitors not take their photos.

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