Trade for food

Stasi prison July 31, 1985

Breakfast is bad in here.

Three slices of hard gray bred.

Two ounces of lard with salt and pepper.

Lunch is worse.

Almost daily overcooked kraut stew.

Two slices of that same old, hard gray bread.

Dinner is not much better.

Same bread regime as above.

Two types of greasy, tasteless sausage. 

You can have one visit per month.

Visitors are allowed to bring 2kg of food.

Some prisoners buy better food from other’s care packages.

Some say that the criminals in the kitchen do weird stuff to the food.

Some claim that the Stasi might use the food for pharmaceutical testing on the political prisoners.

At the end of the day I need to find ways to secure better food as I can’t see myself feeding on this crap for months.

I saw my cell comrades feasting on Sunday.

All three meals inside the cell with the best western food.

Nutella, fresh fruits, Swedish crisp bread, corned beaf, chocolate milk.

“You need to be smart about it you know.

If you have a ‘bro’ in here you can share.

If you ‘find’ money you can buy everything.”

There is no coffee or alcohol but tea, lots tea.

Folks smuggle, buy and trade tea of all sorts.

Real money is worth 5 times the prison cash.

So, if I want to bypass the lousy food I need to get to real cash and good tea.

Have to educate my folks when they come visit me.

It will only start working with the next visit cycle.

*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.