Mail day
Stasi prison May 25, 1985
Saturday, alone once more.
Surprise after breakfast.
Letters from home.
The only contact with my family was my dad’s visit earlier this month.
Now I get mail from my parents.
A lot of mail!
Stasi offices. The mail was thoroughly checked and gathered for a monthly distribution. The limit to writing was one page, no context to the case and only family members of first degree were allowed to write. My parents wrote several letters a week. I never knew which letters didn't make the stage gates.
Seven letters.
One page each.
The first one a month old.
Of course the envelopes are open.
Of course they were thoroughly checked.
Of course it doesn’t bother me in the least.
I know where I am.
I cherish these letters.
I am not alone in all this.
Throughout the sequence of the letters I can clearly feel the process.
Too many questions to be bearable in the beginning.
The suffering too painful to make sense of it.
The third and fourth letter already stronger.
Determined to go through this together.
Unwavering support and sadness.
We might never see each other again.
The words are not written there.
But we all know its true.
It pulls them together.
It makes them stronger.
It allows them to second guess.
With their determination to build a protected home and offer opportunities for us kids my parents never tried to be heroes or risk any of our small family well being.
It was hard enough to make a living and get by, swimming with the flow.
They didn’t know it any better.
Born and raised in the hell of war, their appetite for suffering and atrocities was zero.
I’d never blame them for not stepping out of what they had built and tried to protect.
Seeing how they were pushed around and deprived of civil liberties made me crazy mad.
The seventh letter is from two days ago.
Dad is looking forward to the next visit.
I’ll see him next week again, can’t wait.
Greetings from my brother, my best bud and girl friend.
Will I ever see them again?
Are they in trouble too?
*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.