Dad
Stasi prison May 03, 1985
Dad is coming today.
I’m excited, scared to see him hurt.
He will want to know that I am safe.
Yesterday - a day with endless repetitions.
How I was brought up, how my parents raised me, how they influenced me.
It made me think about them all day long, well into another light-flash interrupted night.
How have they lived the past two weeks?
How have they slept?
Surprise in the morning.
Baby Schubert talks openly about §219.
They ‘evaluate it’ next to the ‘obvious' §214.
Why today?
Why hours before I see my dad?
I can’t do anything anyway though!
I tried to fence it off as good as I could.
There is no proof that I deliberately involved a ‘foreign power’.
Unless a copy of the 3 pager manifesto found its way out which I don’t know.
Early afternoon, a call boy picks me up.
Guides me through the many hallways.
Feels like a solid hike of 15 minutes.
Original Stasi visitation room as photo-documented when the dissidents stormed the Stasi headquarters during the 1989 revolution. Not really inviting but compared to our cells: 4-stars.
I feel the warmth and the nerves all over my body.
Small, simple room, one table, two chairs, ugly wallpaper.
After 5 minutes wait the door opens and a guard guides my dad in.
He looks sad, relieved.
We hug for a long time.
The guard breaks it off.
“Sit down.
You are not allowed to talk about the case.
You are not allowed to exchange anything.
30 minutes.”
I smile.
Because I am happy and because I want to show confidence.
“Do they hurt you?”
“No.”
“Honest?”
“Yes dad, they only try to find out what to charge me with. They are correct with me.”
“You look terrible."
No word about the hunger strike.
"I don’t sleep too well and I’m not too hungry."
He looks old.
Worn.
My fault.
“How’s mom?”
“Good days and bad days.”
“Tell her how sorry I am and…”
“We need you to know that, whatever you have done and whatever you try, we will always be right behind you. ALWAYS!”
-Silence
“We didn’t know that you were at this crossroad.”
“I know. I needed this to be my own way.”
“We support you!”
“Stay safe.”
“We are.”
I believe him.
My dad can’t lie.
Never did.
“What is going to happen?”
“I believe that I will be charged in a couple of months.”
“With what?”
“NO DETAILS ON THE CASE!”
“Some get 2 years, some less.”
Trying to sound optimistic here.
THANKS A LOT BABY FACE!
We both hug again after the 30 minutes.
They passed like 10 though.
He’ll be back in 4 weeks.
“Promise me that you’ll eat enough."
I’m still nervous but he was relieved.
It's a start to a new story.
*Testimony -> Start. This blog entry is part of a linear narrated testimony of the contemporary witness Jens Thieme who was imprisoned 1985-1986 as a political prisoner in various GDR prisons by the GDR Ministry of State Security. Stasi prison, Stasi jail, Stasi detention.