Grandpa

Stasi prison August 16, 1985

Parents visit today.

Strip and search.

WTF?

“Are you afraid I smuggle some of your rotten food out?”

“You have one hour and you are allowed 4kg.”

I can feel my heart pumping in my head.

Mom wears a yellow summer dress.

I can’t stop squeezing her.

Dad is relaxed.

“You have gray hear!”

“Just a patch mom.”

They look afraid.

It improves as I talk about my friends here.

We even find some laughter.

Then the bad news.

My grandpa had passed on May 25th.

Now it makes sense why dad was crushed when he saw me just three days later.

They didn’t want to write it but talk me through it and be there for me when they did.

Grandpa Kurt at the family gathering where I saw him last. He passed May 25th 1985 while I was incarcerated by the Stasi. There was no way of course to pay my last respects. R.I.P.

“Everyone else is fine!”

They tell me about their new friends.

Through a colleague they had met two wives of political prisoners.

Now this also makes sense.

When mom started coloring her letters.

A lot of new hope and she had a chance to understand the process.

“When do you think you will be released?”

“I hope before Spring!”

“Not home.”

No - not home…

I can’t hide my hope.

It must hurt them like hell.

“We brought you ham and fruits and some candy.”

One guard checks the package and its content rather superficially.

“They did some frisking before, are they afraid that we drop a float?”

There’s my dad’s humor again!

“Listen: I need to stop working for these idiots. Can you bring chocolate powder next time and hide money in it? I can trade it with everything I need in here.”

“Give grandma an hour-long hug from me please!”

The hour went way too fast.

Tears.

*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.