Keyhole

Stasi prison July 17, 1985

I will not miss this sound.

Steady steps towards the cell.

Echoing through the prison court.

Sudden stop.

A key is forced into the keyhole.

Violent turning of what seems several pounds of metal.

Stasi pre-trial prison door with metal key. It seemed that the guards purposely used speed and force to open the doors for some added shock value.

I can tell by now which cell will open.

Sometimes we bet for fun and boredom.

Next week this door will open for my transport.

The guards won’t tell me where I’ll be going.

They never know, they tell me.

So I’ll learn upon arrival.

The slim book selection off the library trolly is exhausted.

Someone told me there will be news papers in prison.

A bigger book selection even and chess boards.

There are closed prisons where you are locked into individual cells like here.

And there are open prisons where they lock everything on the outside but you can move freely within the building.

The longer I speculate about my next months the more I look forward to the time passing but I am still scared about the unknown.

More than anything however: I’m scared not to be bailed out to the West.

There are cases of political prisoners who find themselves going back home.

I’m not sure if those are simply the ones who want to stay to fight the system from the inside.

I don’t want to lose 2 years of my life.

For now I only want to lose one thing:

The mind shattering key turning noise.

*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.