{"id":325,"date":"2014-11-12T22:30:19","date_gmt":"2014-11-12T20:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/solarev.org\/eastwest2014\/?p=325"},"modified":"2023-07-06T19:43:35","modified_gmt":"2023-07-06T17:43:35","slug":"hohenschonhausen-the-cold-walls-of-the-cold-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/solarev.org\/eastwest2014\/de\/2014\/11\/12\/hohenschonhausen-the-cold-walls-of-the-cold-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Hohensch\u00f6nhausen: the Cold Walls of the Cold War"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In my life I’ve\u00a0visited only two\u00a0prisons: 1st\u00a0was few years ago, a present juvenile portuguese prison and the 2nd, few days ago, a former political prison from\u00a0Berlin. Both visits reveled me important aspects,\u00a0but now I will reffer more to\u00a0the last one.\"\"<\/div>\n
When I found out that we will visit a former Stazi\u00a0prison, from GDR,\u00a0I\u00a0wasn’t sure what to expect. In fact, I didn’t have any expectations. I was just there, after a long (and nice) walk, for an\u00a0official guided tour of the\u00a0place.<\/div>\n
What I would like to talk about is something that was totally\u00a0present in my mind during the tour, which I think it’s an important point of reflection.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

I am from Romania and I was 6 when the communist regime fell. Almost all my memories about that period are from books, collective – oral stories, TV shows or individual narratives. On the specific\u00a0topic of the political imprisoning I mainly know stories from books. In Romanian literature there are lots of memorials\u00a0of the attrocities that happend during the communist regime, inside these abominable\u00a0places.\u00a0When I was 16\u00a0I remember I was crying while reading a book of a former political prisoner\u00a0and I couldn’t believe that people can be so cruel to each other and that those horrible\u00a0horrible thigs were happening so close to me, in the very palpable, touchable\u00a0ground of Romania, not\u00a0so many years ago in the century I was born.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
During\u00a0the trip through\u00a0Hohensch\u00f6nhausen\u00a0prison I had this very specific\u00a0thought that\u00a0„In Romania was way worse“ and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Random facts and tortures from the books and stories I’ve heard all my life were appearing in my mind over and over again. You may say that is natural, lot of us were thinking about this – in our group\u00a0discussion after the visit – I could observe that not only some of\u00a0my colegues from Romania were thinking at the same, but also colegues from other places, as, for exemple, Lithuania.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Though, I can understand our reactions, one thing came in my mind after our reflection time, and that is that we should not compare sufferings<\/em>.<\/div>\n
From my point of view this is kind of, not only disrespectful, but dangerous also. People suffered more than we can imagine and I think that just one day without freedom can be devastating\u00a0for a lifetime. We don’t talk anymore\u00a0about freedom as a concept,\u00a0but about brute reality,\u00a0humiliation, torture, phisical and psychological pain. Sure we can see the differences between,\u00a0but comparing the sufferences, when we are in a place where there was so much of it and taking it so easily\u00a0after we just went there, for me it’s like saying that a very awfull ilness\u00a0is better than another horrible\u00a0ilness, after both pacients died.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So, my proposal is simple:\u00a0whenever we encounter this kind of situations, just take some time of real and empathic\u00a0reflection, and understand the mutuality and the „universality“\u00a0of suffering, in this case of imprisoning, in other cases of war, social bias and so on. This humanistic perspective is important for me not only in the metter of remembrance approaches, but also for the present and the days to come.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my life I’ve\u00a0visited only two\u00a0prisons: 1st\u00a0was few years ago, a present juvenile portuguese prison and the 2nd, few days ago, a former political prison from\u00a0Berlin. Both visits reveled me important aspects,\u00a0but now I will reffer more to\u00a0the last one. When I found out that we will visit a former Stazi\u00a0prison, from GDR,\u00a0I\u00a0wasn’t sure what … Hohensch\u00f6nhausen: the Cold Walls of the Cold War<\/span> weiterlesen →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/solarev.org\/eastwest2014\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/solarev.org\/eastwest2014\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/solarev.org\/eastwest2014\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solarev.org\/eastwest2014\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solarev.org\/eastwest2014\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/solarev.org\/eastwest2014\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326,"href":"https:\/\/solarev.org\/eastwest2014\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions\/326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/solarev.org\/eastwest2014\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solarev.org\/eastwest2014\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solarev.org\/eastwest2014\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}