Out the door

Stasi prison July 17, 1986

Everything feels like slow motion.

I am like wrapped in an invisible protective foil.

Impulses from the outside, I act on them mechanically.

Faceless guards guide me to a windowless room in the basement.

Three officers busy with paperwork, me on a wooden bench.

No words are exchanged, I’m numb with surprise.

I didn’t pay attention in the hallways whether there are more comrades taken today.

It is a Thursday and in the last weeks the Thursday transport schedule held firm.

Why are there no other prisoners down here or are we just shielded?

Will they take me to another prison for the remaining weeks and still release me home?

Or is this indeed the final processing to get me across the border to the West?

Were the lawyers and the West German government successful in the end?

One guard takes a large envelope, stuffs some documents in and heads out the door.

Another takes a file and points me to the door.

Out were are heading.

*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.