(Un)Locked Lives:

Transcription

(Un)Locked Lives:

(Un)Locked Lives:
Practices of Place, Memory and Belonging at Gedenkstätte
Berlin-Hohenschönhausen
Mirjam Dorgelo
Student ID: 1323733
VU University; Department of
Social and Cultural Anthropology
Master Thesis
June 26, 2012
Supervisor: Dr. S.J.T.M. Evers
Second Reader: M. Balkenhol , MA
(UN)LOCKED LIVES:
PRACTICES OF PLACE, MEMORY AND BELONGING AT GEDENKSTÄTTE BERLIN-HOHENSCHÖNHAUSEN
2012
Cover photo: Guckloch (peephole) on cell door, used by the guards to observe and inspect prisoners
inside the cell, 30/11/2010. All images in this thesis are my own, unless otherwise stated.
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to all those who have shared their precious time, stories, and silences with me. I
am aware that for many of you remembering is much more than telling a story. Although I will never
be able to fully understand what you have been going through and still are, I sincerely hope that this
thesis not only adds to an analytical understanding of processes of memory, citizenship and place,
but also acknowledges and respects those memories and feelings that you have not shared. Our life
and its stories always remain our own, even when (partly) shared. I am grateful for having been given
the opportunity to participate in a part of your life that taught me not only about your often painful
pasts, but also about your present courage.
A specific thanks to Helmuth Frauendorfer who was enthusiastic about my research from the
moment we met and encouraged me to locate my research in the Gedenkstätte. Thank you for
introducing me to so many people and events that added to a fuller understanding. I appreciated our
many shared coffee and cigarette breaks very much, and am glad to have you as a friend.
Dear Sandra Evers, you have been the best supervisor I could have imagined. You have always been
enthusiastic and supportive about my research. Your critical assessments were always accompanied
by great care and words of encouragement, which both inspired me and helped me through the
weary times.
Thanks to the department of communication of social sciences, who provided for the finances
necessary to buy a video camera, enabling me to carry out my research using visual methodology.
Thanks to Ina Keuper for suggestion this option and to Lenie Brouwer for mediating with the
department.
Thanks to Trijnie van Dijk, my dear friend, for being you. Thank you, and all other friends, for visiting
me in Berlin during my fieldwork; it was both great encouragement and fun! Mom and dad, thank
you for being the amazing supportive parents you are and for visiting me in Berlin during my
fieldwork as well. Dear Katie thanks for taking the time to read through the early stages of my first
few chapters. Tonia, my great sister in law, thank you for reading through the whole concept in two
weeks and adding some last suggestions, I owe you! And, of course, thank you and Bert for your love
and support; Skype-sessions rock! Last but not least, a special thanks to Jaap Kok, for all your
enthusiasm, assistance, and patience, but most of all for your love.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................................2
Contents ...................................................................................................................................................3
1. The Presence of the Past; Locating ‘die Alte Welt’ in Berlin ................................................................5
1.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................5
1.2 Social and Scientific Relevance .......................................................................................................7
1.3 Outline Thesis .................................................................................................................................8
Blogpost Fragment: How Anti-Graffiti Coating Revives Germany’s Past ...............................................10
2. The Ghosts of Berlin: Approaching the Past through Memorial Landscapes.....................................11
2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................11
2.2 Approaching the Past: the Sense and Non-Sense of the Collective Memory Debate ..................11
2.3 Commemorative Practices............................................................................................................13
2.4 Erinnerungspolitik (the politics of memory): Contested Places, Contested Memories................15
2.5 Which Past? The Uncomfortable Heritage of Nationalism and Totalitarianism ..........................16
2.6 Places of Pain and Shame .............................................................................................................18
2.7 The Commodification of Memory: Ostprodukte and Narrative Performance .............................19
Photo: Corridor Cellar Wing New Prison Building HsH ...........................................................................23
3. Routes and Routines: Reflection on Fieldwork, Methodology and Knowledge .................................24
3.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................24
3.2 Kiez und Knast: Research in a Non-Traditional Field ....................................................................24
3.3 Changes and Choices in the Field .................................................................................................26
3.4 Entering and Leaving the Field......................................................................................................27
3.5 Mapping Place and Space: Guided Tours and Video Elicitation ...................................................28
Blogpost Fragment: Die Ewige Lampe ...................................................................................................31
4. Walking through the Past: Memory and Trauma at the Former Stasi Prison ....................................32
4.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................32
4.2 Submerging and Surfacing Again: U-Boat Experiences ................................................................32
4.3 The New Prison Building: A Spatial Guidebook ............................................................................35
4.4 Narrating Trauma; Confronting the Past ......................................................................................39
4.5 Ein Andere Welt: The Unspeakable Past .......................................................................................42
4.6 Conclusion: Undoing the Past, Arranging the Present .................................................................47
Blogpost Fragment: Stalins Bart ist ab ..................................................................................................48
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5. Undoing Ostalgie: The (un)Desirable Past .........................................................................................49
5.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................49
5.2 Intermingling and Conflicting Pasts ..............................................................................................49
5.3 Wo die Hohen schön Hausen: Neighborhood Struggles and more...............................................53
5.4 Undoing Ostalgie ..........................................................................................................................55
5.5 The Paradox of Authentic Eyewitness Tours ................................................................................57
5.6 Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................59
Photo: ‘Inhaftiert’ ...................................................................................................................................60
6. Conclusion: Disrupted Memories, Persistent Practices .....................................................................61
6.1 Recap: Contributing to the Field of Memory Studies ...................................................................61
6.2 Merging Dynamics of Memory, Trauma and Place ......................................................................62
6.2 Protecting the Past from being Sold .............................................................................................63
Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................66
Bibliography............................................................................................................................................67
Appendices 1-9 .......................................................................................................................................72
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CHAPTER 1. THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST; LOCATING ‘DIE ALTE WELT’ IN BERLIN.
1.1 Introduction
Boundaries seem to be erected on every new street corner of every declining neighborhood in our
world (Friedman in Baumann 2001: 16).
A world without boundaries does not exist. By definition people are bound; bound in and by their
own body (for a certain amount of time), bound by time and space, in what we physically and
mentally can and cannot do, and limited by our imagination of self and other. In our globalizing
world, the idea that boundaries are disappearing is a generally accepted notion. However, while
some boundaries may be disappearing, others appear in their place. They are drawn and
constructed, both physically and ideologically. A historical example of both a physical and ideological
boundary is the Berlin Wall.
The Berlin wall played an essential role in the construction of East and West Germany and the
associated identification process. More than a mere display of the already existing global ideological
differences; it also generated various opposing experiences between East and West on a political as
well as on an everyday citizenship level. Although the physical wall is gone, the differences between
East and West Germany’s past experiences and their former images of the future still have their
impact on present identifications. Such differences are often revealed in disputes surrounding the
(ab)use of physical place and space. The distinction between place and space is well captured by
Svašek (2002): Place is the actual locality where people live, in other words, as the material
surroundings through which they physically move during their daily routine. Space, by contrast, is the
general idea people have of where things should be in physical and cultural relation to each other. In
other words, space is a mental picture instead of a particular locality (2002: 498). Svašek uses this
definition in trying to understand processes of home and belonging in relation to German Sudeten
expellee claims to homeland1, and argues that these claims, as well as other historical events such as
the unification of Germany, have reasserted the political usefulness of identity-place discourses.
Belonging often has a territorial component that is tied to history and memory. Contemporary places
and practices of memory tell us that past and present do not exist as isolated time frames; they
merge and through them a future is imagined and constructed. In a post-war and post-partition
country, especially in its capital Berlin, the (ab)use of physical place and space is a complicated and
agonizing subject. Berlin – headquarters of the Nazi regime in World War 2 and (symbolic) frontline
of the Cold War – is infused with memories of war and separation and current use of historical
1
In 1946 the majority of Sudeten Germans – over 3 million people - were expelled from Czechoslovakia to Germany.
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sites/buildings, or plans for urban development, serve as a contemporary arena in which different
actors compete with each other over its ‘appropriate’ use and meaning.
Living in this city poses a challenge to the use of place and feelings of belonging, in particular when
reunification brought with it new conditions of experience, often argued to be dominated by the
West. My initial attention was geared towards past and present experiences of place in relation to
feelings and ideas of (national) belonging of former East Berlin citizens, but was during my research
further specified to former political prisoners working as tour guides at Gedenkstätte
Hohenschönhausen. To investigate this complicated relationship, I formulated the following research
question:
How do eyewitnesses working at Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen experience and use physical
place and ontological space in creating (national) notions of belonging and citizenship?
During my fieldwork research in Berlin (July-December 2010) I soon realized that, although
analytically separated into sub-questions in my research proposal, ideas about and attitudes towards
citizenship could hardly be parted from the significance of physical places in my respondents
experiences. The distinction between place and space is of course an analytical one which serves to
illustrate the way in which physical experiences of a place influence people’s mental picture (space)
regarding the organization and meaning of a place, and the way in which a mental picture
determines the perception and assessment of such places. In my research proposal I had asserted
the complicated triangular relationship between national identity, citizenship, and physical place(s);
by examining the way in which physical places are meaningful in people’s everyday experiences of
citizenship and belonging, one could come to a better understanding of an altered, but far from
diminishing role of nation-states in contemporary (national) identifications. Although I did not think
of ‘belonging’ in terms of warm, affectionate feelings related to home and/or safety per se, I
assumed that in general ‘belonging’ implied a positive stance towards the subject (for example places
and/or people) of one’s ‘feelings of belonging’. Belonging naturally has a restrictive component in the
sense that one identifies not only with a place or person, but also in spite of, or against other
options. Within a few weeks one of my primary locations of research would be Gedenkstätte
Hohenschönhausen2, a former GDR state security prison. A setting that forced me to adjust my
assumptions and realize that notions of belonging can also develop from and be shaped by places of
terror, by fear, isolation and alienation. This former Stasi prison, at present a memorial site where
eyewitnesses guide visitors along the buildings and their own life stories, became the focal point of
my research.
2
‘Gedenkstätte’ is the German word for memorial site; Hohenschönhausen is the district in which it is located.
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1.2 Social and Scientific Relevance
Twenty-one years have gone by since German reunification, yet the process of reunification still has
its impact on society. One important indication was the exuberant anniversary celebration in
November 2009, when the fall of the Berlin Wall, 20 years back, was remembered. Other important
signs are recurring disagreements related to the value and content of symbolic places in Berlin (for
example historic buildings and memorials) and the substantial differences in voting behavior in
former West- and East-Berlin.3 All these events indicate Germany’s continuing struggle with the
ghosts of its violent and oppressive past that seem to haunt present identifications. I believe the
relevance of my research lies precisely in this German struggle with its past that is so often
mentioned by national and international scholars, politicians, and journalists alike. Although
(political) discourse, policy and public awareness regarding Germany’s ruptured past cannot be left
unattended in discussing my research findings, the main focus will be on (daily) spatial practices and
processes of belonging of former political prisoners in the GDR.
As for the relevance of my initial choice to focus on former East Berlin citizens: in public discourse
regarding East-German society, ‘ordinary’ East Germans are often represented as ‘victims’ of an
oppressive regime. Although my research eventually concentrated on people who were imprisoned
based on their anti-GDR activities (for example wanting to leave the GDR, helping other people to
escape or express opinions against the state), I want to show that post-unification narratives and
experiences of belonging are far more complicated than clear-cut victim-perpetrator or former EastWest divisions. In a reunited society – that has been transformed by ‘western’ discourse and
practices proclaiming the victory of the West – what room do former political prisoners have (or
create) to belong? By examining the way in which physical places are meaningful in people’s
everyday experiences within, against, due to, or despite the nation-state’s ideals and practices, a
more thorough understanding can be reached of present processes of belonging and rupture in a
post-partition and post-totalitarian context.
By looking at spatial practices at a former state security prison, my assumption that belonging is
often defined by some kind of affection (towards people, places, ideas) was greatly challenged by the
connection between belonging and suffering I observed at the Gedenkstätte. However, not only my
3
Of specific importance to this thesis are the significant differences in election results for the PDS/WASG/Die Linke (PDS
being the former Stalinist party, in 2007 PDS and WASG merged into Die Linke) in former West- and East-Berlin: 1990: 1.1
(W) vs 23.6 (E) percent, 1995: 2.1 (W) vs 36.3 (E), 1999: 4.2 (W) vs 39.5 (E), 2001: 6,9 (W) vs 47,6 (E), 2006: 6,9 (W) vs 31.4
(E), 2011: 4.3 (W) vs 22.6 (E). District Lichtenberg (in which the former Stasi prison is located) showed the highest rates in
favor of PDS of all former East-Berlin districts: 1998: 34,0 %, 2001: 53,2 %, 2006: 35,6 %, 2011: 29%.
(http://www.wahlen-berlin.de/historie/Wahlen/Landeswahlleiterbericht_AH2001.pdf)
(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahl_zum_Abgeordnetenhaus_von_Berlin_2006)
(http://www.wahlenberlin.de/wahlen/BE2011/ergebnis/karten/zweitstimmen/ErgebnisUeberblick.asp?sel1=1052&sel2=0651)
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own assumptions were challenged; the nation-state has been, quite literally, the ultimate purveyor
of these people’s status and identity and – although at present living in a democratic instead of a
totalitarian nation-state – such experiences perhaps challenge ideas about the role of nation-states
in contemporary (national) identifications. How do the experiences of my research subjects relate to
observations such as Klein’s (in Novak 2010), that Germans are identifying stronger with their
country especially in our globalizing world with the insecurities it brings; or to Miller-Idriss (2006),
who argues that national citizenship is a meaningful concept and a powerful form of identification?
According to Migdal (2004) and Dietzsch (2007), the importance of nation-states as the ultimate
purveyor of people’s status and identity is contested increasingly by other communal affiliations.
Still, the presence of (a group of) people who question both the past role and the present liability of
the state in the daily life of its citizens, should also be understood as part of the relationship between
state and citizens. The paradox of the state as being simultaneously a part and apart from society, as
Migdal argues (Ibid: 18), can also be applied to its citizens who belong apart from but at the same
time as a part of society. Citizens may be marginalized, restricted by, or dissociate themselves from
the state, the parameters of such restrictions are at the same time the parameters of belonging.
1.3 Outline Thesis
In a research setting where people, who were previously imprisoned by the state because of their
critical or unsupportive behavior towards the German Democratic Republic, at present, perform
guided tours, one cannot argue that their ‘belonging’ is in any way tied to affectionate feelings or
experiences of this place. Belonging in this setting is tied to a traumatic past, to suffering, to an
oppressive regime. Yet how can one understand the present practices of these former prisoners at
the very same place they have suffered injustice, fear, isolation, etcetera. Are the former
prisoners/and present tour guides trying to tackle the ghosts of their pasts, so to speak? In the
course of my research I learned from my informants that their present guiding work is not so much a
coping strategy, but goes beyond processing their past (Aufarbeitung). On the contrary, their work as
tour guides often distresses them severely, yet most of them continue doing this work for years.
Exactly these apparently contradictory observations regarding past traumatic experiences and
present memorial practices offer the outline for my thesis:
Chapter two, ‘The Ghosts of Berlin: Approaching the Past through Memorial Landscapes’ offers an
introduction to Germany’s national and local politics of history through its associated memory
industry. This chapter focuses on theorizing important concepts structuring my research and shows
that theoretical and regional backgrounds are inextricably linked to each other. Descriptions of the
main research site(s) follow in Chapter three, ‘Routes and Routines’, which also presents
methodological choices and reflections on research experiences. It can be seen a transitional chapter
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in which the guided tour as both research method and objective is used to illustrate the relationship
between (visual) methodology and (spatial) knowledge. In chapter four, ‘Walking through the Past:
Memory and Trauma at the former Stasi Prison’, I discuss the paradox of the tours as a way to both
share and unlock the past and as a way to control the past and keep it at a bearable distance. This
paradox is of vital importance in understanding the intermingling processes of memory, trauma, and
place. In this chapter I will present data from both guided tours and interviews that offer insight on
the relationship between spatial and narrative dynamics. The following sub-question functioned as a
directive: How are experiences and perceptions of place meaningful in narrating the past at
Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen? Chapter five, ‘Undoing Ostalgie: the (un)Desirable Past’, examines
the practices of remembering and forgetting at Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen in relation to other
commemorative practices in Berlin and addresses the authentic body of the eyewitnesses to
authorize history. The following sub-question functioned as a directive: How do former prisoners,
who work at Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen, relate GDR history to their past experiences and
sufferings and to present processes of belonging? In chapter six, ‘Disrupted Memories, Persistent
Practices’, I address both the contribution of my research to memory studies as well as the
conclusions of my research.
The vignettes and/or photos designed in between the chapters function to illustrate key insights or
conflicting notions of the central text in the chapters.
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BLOGPOST FRAGMENT: HOW ANTI-GRAFFITI COATING REVIVES GERMANY’S PAST.4
There is no escaping them. The ghosts of Berlin reveal themselves on nearly every street corner. If
not a memorial sign for the victims of World War 2, then one dedicated to the victims of the GDRregime. The quantity and shapes of memorials are fascinating. When walking in between the 2700
concrete columns making up the Holocaust monument, I think of Philippe Remarque, a Dutch
newspaper correspondent in Berlin from 1999 until 2005, who wrote an intriguing book about
Berlin’s daily life, history, places, and monuments.5 Instead of being able to respectfully reflect upon
the destruction of all those Jewish lives, the only thing crossing my mind (due to Remarque’s book) is
the uncomfortable knowledge about the anti-graffiti coating covering these concrete blocks. This
anti-graffiti coating was provided by the chemical company ‘Degussa’, whose subsidiary produced
Zyklon-B during World War 2, the poison gas used to murder millions of people in the death camps.
During the construction of the monument, Degussa’s controversial past was revealed and a heated
dispute began during which the construction of the monument was shut for several weeks.
And here I am, holding a digital SLR camera to capture the oddly photogenic maze of concrete blocks
with tourists taking an afternoon nap in its shade, block hoppers and the block silhouettes which
seem to produce an ever-changing shadow monument. In retrospect, this monument of shades gains
an even deeper meaning to which I was previously unaware: it seems symbolic of the dark Holocaust
past which still casts a shadow over contemporary Germany. I decide to take pictures. Not despite,
but thanks to architect Peter Eisenman, whose aim was to create an open entrance monument
through which memory would be incorporated into daily life.
Germany’s past is virtually impossible to pass by. Given the amount of public debates on any even
remotely meaningful place in Berlin, Germany’s past is not meant to be disregarded. Tom, one of the
students living in the same dorm in Berlin as me, commented on this: “The present…? This is
something we Germans are not very good at. With us it’s always about the past or the future.”
Although I wonder if this is specific to Germany – evaluating one’s life in light of both past and future
seems a general human tendency – I do empathize with Tom’s somewhat cynical remark. It can’t be
easy to grow up in a country where its collective consciousness is constantly guarded. When
reflecting upon Germany’s past, the phrase “I don’t want to know” is considered even more
politically incorrect than its predecessor “I did not know”.
4
5
http://mirinthisworld.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html (translation by author).
Remarque, P. (2005) Boze geesten van Berlijn. Amsterdam: Muntinga Pockets.
Photo: Holocaust Monument, 19/07/2010.
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CHAPTER 2. THE GHOSTS OF BERLIN: APPROACHING THE PAST THROUGH MEMORIAL LANDSCAPES.
2.1 Introduction
When thinking of the regional specifics that should be introduced to explain the context of the
research I conducted, I found myself questioning and resisting the idea of presenting a number of
historical facts and dates as a way to summarize Germany’s national history and act as a pre-given,
fixed context to my fieldwork research. Any uncritical approach to either national, regional, or urban
historical and/or demographic facts could too easily be interpreted as functional historical
contextualization, the very thing I strive to identify and explain in my thesis as the politics of memory
and history. Therefore an introduction of Germany’s national and local politics of history, through its
associated memory industry, seems more appropriate.
The preceding fragment of a blog post written during one of my first encounters with Berlin’s
memorial landscape, the context in which my fieldwork took place, is exemplary of Berlin’s extensive
range of commemorative places with which I would get acquainted in the following months. There
are various places in Berlin where the past seems to be exhibited quite recognizably. However, the
recollection of the past is not merely reserved for places whose presence – due to its visibility,
national significance, historical value, and/or clear commemorative objective, often combined with a
high visitation frequency – has become established in Berlin’s context. Places such as the Holocaust
Memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, or the East Side Gallery where the largest remaining part of the Berlin
Wall can be found. In a way such places have become explicit public/social knowledge, although its
meaning does not have to be fixed or unambiguous, yet they are only part of what can be called an
urban landscape of commemorative places and practices. It is important to note that although the
past can be clearly commemorated or even celebrated through historical buildings, exhibitions, or
memorials, there is more to the remembrance of the past than such exemplary places in which the
commemorative objective is clear. Traces of the past – material (places, objects) or immaterial
(events, memories) – can simultaneously be revealed, buried, remembered, or forgotten, through
intentional and unintentional commemorative places and practices.
2.2 Approaching the Past: the Sense and Non-Sense of the Collective Memory Debate
When thinking about how to define history and memory, the distinction between history as the
official academic representation of the past and memory as its non-academic counterpart seems
outdated. The differences and parallels between history and memory have long been discussed by
scholars from a range of disciplines, but the postmodernist challenge of historiography’s ‘truth claim’
by questioning the distinction between knowledge and interpretation, and derivatively between
history and memory seems to have been broadly accepted; at least, in academic circles (White 1973
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and Veyne 1984 cited in Olick & Robbins 1998: 110). With the erosion of the belief in a clear-cut
distinction between history and memory, competing pasts and historical legitimacy claims have
proliferated (1998: 134) and so have memory studies that address the question of how ‘the past’ is
created and recreated within socio-cultural contexts. In such memory studies, history is often
approached as a type of collective cultural memory (defined as the collectively shared
representations of the past) inseparably associated with myths regarding national identity. Before
giving an impression on how such shared representations of the past relate to the formation,
maintenance or disintegration of identity, it is important to give an impression of, and take a stance
in the ‘memory’ debate, in particular toward the (mis)use of the concept ‘collective memory’.
Collective, or cultural memory, has been defined as “the collectively shared representations of the
past (Olick and Robbins 1998)”, as “the dynamic process in which groups map myths about
themselves and their world onto a specific time and place to secure their present and future
existence (Till 1999: 254), or as “the interplay between present and past in socio-cultural contexts” –
in which culture is defined as a community’s specific way of life and meaning-making – (Erll 2010:
305). In an attempt to shed light on the use of the concept ‘collective memory’, Olick (1999) largely
divides the ongoing debate into two major approaches; the individualist and collectivist approach.
The first he defines as ‘collected memory approach’ in which memory is viewed as “the aggregated
individual memories of a group” (Ibid: 338). The collective (as opposed to the collected) approach
challenges the very idea of individual memory by stating that “it is not just that we remember as
members of groups, but that we constitute those groups and their members simultaneously in the
act (thus re-member-ing)” (Ibid: 342). Referring to his own research, Olick states that “quite
consistent with the neuro-psychological image of remembering as an active and constructive process
rather than as a reproduction, sociologists have demonstrated the ways in which the past is remade
in the present for present purpose” (Ibid: 341). Such constructivism, however, seems to me
problematic because of its emphasis on the politics of memory. The neurological studies the author
refers to (Ibid: 340), “have demonstrated that neural networks channel bits and pieces called
‘engrams’ to different places in the brain and store them in different ways. The process of
remembering, therefore, does not involve the ‘reappearance’ or ‘reproduction’ of an experience in
its original form, but the cobbling together of a ‘new’ memory.” This knowledge seems to be taken to
a politicized level by Olick, which is by no means implied in those neurological studies. When memory
is characterized as a representation of past events that can never be accurate, but are instead
molded according to people’s interests, it presents a false idea of the workings of memory. Although
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the politics of memory cannot be denied6 – the power play between different (groups of) people
over the past is only too real – one has to acknowledge that the constructivist claim about memory
may be just the oil that ignites the fire of precisely those who try to cover up the past. Consequently,
any memory or any claim about the past could thus be (in)validated.
To Olick, the clearest demonstration of the genuinely collective nature of remembering is the degree
to which it takes place in and through language, narrative and dialogue, as language itself is
inherently dialogical (Ibid: 343). Coman et al (2009) seem to agree with this. They offer a
psychological perspective on how conversations transform individual isolated memories into more
consensual ones. They acknowledge that other sources such as media, texts, public officials,
museums, and monuments can also foster such consensus. Though the dialogical character of
language and the way in which consensus may be fostered through language and other sources may
be true, the concept of ‘collective memory’ only confuses the debate. It seems to me that the very
processes through which ‘memory’ or a representation of the past becomes institutionalized and as
a result is viewed as natural in a community or society, are taken for granted in the concept
‘collective memory’ itself. Whether it be an interpretation as the extended mind thesis (groups have
identities and memories of their own), or a claim about the social, cultural, historical and political
processes that shape representations of the past, ‘collective memory’ as a concept confuses more
than it explains. Berliner (2005) rightly states that “by a dangerous act of expansion, memory
gradually becomes everything which is transmitted across generations, everything stored in culture,
‘almost indistinguishable’ then from the concept of culture itself” (Ibid: 203).
2.3 Commemorative Practices
Erll (2010) also acknowledges that cultural memory has become a metaphor and cover term for
various forms of experience and knowledge which are shared and passed on within social
formations. He states that “cultural memory is a kind of ‘archive’ which, however, has to be
performed […] to become meaningful for the individuals and groups who do the remembering in
their respective present” (Ibid: 305-306). Hirst and Manier (2008), who treat collective memories as
shared individual memories that shape collective identity, emphasize that a collective memory can
only be said to form if a community converges on a shared rendering which remains stable over time.
They stress the importance of looking at the design process of a community’s resources and practices
and the mnemonic effectiveness of such ‘design processes’. Kansteiner (2002) too points out the
importance of approaching collective memory as the interaction among three types of historical
6
When a memory is shared, a process of negotiation inevitably takes place (whether conscious or not). This negotiation
process is not only evident in what is narrated and what isn’t (negotiation is implicit in the narration process), but also in
the distribution of power: who has the power/opportunity to narrate memory in which context?
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factors; briefly summarized as the memory makers, the memory users, and the visual and discursive
objects and traditions of representation (Ibid: 197). Berliner even dissociates himself clearly from the
concept of ‘collective memory’ when referring to Funkenstein: “consciousness and memory can only
be realized by an individual who acts, is aware, and remembers. Just as a nation cannot eat or dance,
neither can it speak or remember. Remembering is a mental act, and therefore it is absolutely and
completely personal.” (Funkenstein in Berliner 2005: 208). To avoid further confusion, I propose to
make a clear distinction in this thesis between memory and representation. Whereas memory is
individual and internal, “the mental faculty that enables one to retain and recall previously
experienced sensations, impressions, information, and ideas” (Medical Dictionary)7, representations
are external and can be collective, they are socially and historically embedded, or even culturally
mediated themselves as Brockmeier argues (2002). A focus on commemorative practices, in my
opinion, avoids the pitfalls of ‘collective memory’ and helps to analyze by whom memories about the
past are narrated, how they are narrated, how they are distributed, and how certain representations
about the past become authorized.
According to Bloch (1998: 126) memory of the past (experienced or not) is no mere collective
representation. Memory is both individual and social he argues. Social as in how memory is
transmitted through communication between people. When shared, memory, or rather the
representation of such memory (my addition), is a process of negotiation. One creates a new
narrative through combining what is heard or read and how it is imagined in one’s own mind. This
becomes particularly clear when Bloch examines the presence of the past in the present. Topography
(landscape and physical places) infused with history is particularly significant in that it seems to
facilitate the re-experience of history as though one was there (Ibid: 120). This is much more than
simply the memory of a narrative that has been told. It means that certain aspects of the stories we
hear, but have not experienced ourselves, are stored in terms of imaginations of ‘what it was like’.
Episodes of the past are thus ‘remembered’ in ways similar to those people have experienced
themselves. Although my research has not concentrated on visitors recollections of what they have
seen and heard during a guided tour, Bloch’s insight might add to the analysis of guided tours at
Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen in which personal experiences are narrated alongside a curriculum
containing a historical overview. An argument which is also made by White (1999) who analyzes the
discourse of survivors who present personal stories in a memorial context and states that “the
interpolation of the personal in historical narrative simultaneously gives experience collective
significance and collective representations personal meanings (Ibid: 511).
7
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Memory+(psychology)
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To understand commemorative practices at Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen, a more general
understanding of commemorative places and practices in relation to Germany’s history is necessary.
Therefore I have chosen to approach the research context from the concept of memorial landscapes;
which is defined in this thesis as both the concrete physical (geographical) places to which memories
are related, the ideas about memory and its meaning (also called ‘space’), as well as the bodily
expressions or performance through which the dynamic relationship between physical places and the
ideas and meanings attached to it, is communicated. This definition is based on ideas about place
and space (Gupta & Ferguson 1992), the re-making of places of memory (Till 2005) and the way in
which representations of the past are embodied and communicated through performances (in Dwyer
and Alderman 2008).
2.4 Erinnerungspolitik (the politics of memory): Contested Places, Contested Memories
Practices of remembering and forgetting, especially on a collective shared level, often interact with
the (re)formation of collective identity. This has been particularly evident when looking at national
remembrance. Nations use versions of the past strategically to foster feelings of community and
belonging (Anderson 2003; Erll 2010). Although such national mnemonic practices have earlier been
the center of attention in many memory studies, in the past two decades - with the recognition of
globalizing influences well beyond nation-states boundaries – the importance of studying mnemonic
practices unfolding above and below national levels (also called transcultural memory) has become
clear according to Erll (2010).
In order to secure their present and future existence, Till (1999) argues, groups map myths about
themselves and their world onto a specific time and place. Though using the confusing concept
‘collective memory’ to define the dynamic process that includes all the activities that go into making
a version of the past resonate with group members (Ibid: 254), her case is clear. Till argues that
group- and place-boundaries often intersect and in analyzing the controversies surrounding the reestablishment of a national memorial in Berlin, she shows that different actors or groups struggle to
gain cultural authority to selectively represent and narrate the past (Ibid: 255). In a comparative
analysis of Germany and Russia, Forest et al (2004) argue that both post-totalitarian societies face a
common problem of representing their national character as civic and democratic, as their national
identities were closely bound to oppressive regimes. In Germany, they argue, a West-German nationstate discourse came to dominate the debate on national identity, as discussions about the
totalitarian past were tied to Western narratives of winning the Cold War (Ibid: 363). However, the
authors show that since reunification, places of memory and understandings of political community
and social identity are contested and negotiated by various groups; national history is thus renarrated through place-making. Yet, Forest et al (2004) note that the emerging practices of public
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memory may conflict with existing narratives, political cultures, and social hierarchies that limit the
participation and influence of some groups, most notably, former East German citizens (Ibid: 374).
In Germany, and especially in Berlin, memorials and other symbolic places are exemplary of the way
in which the sensory experience of a place both contributes to and is infused with history (or the
memory of history). According to Till (2005) the lingering controversy of German places of memory,
years after reunification, demonstrates that German national imaginations continue to be burdened
with the past. Till’s analysis of places of memory, however, shows that the negotiated ‘politics of
memory’ (Erinnerungspolitik), that narrates (trans)national belonging through place-making
practices, is characterized by both the forgetting and the remembering of the past.
2.5 Which Past? The Uncomfortable Heritage of Nationalism and Totalitarianism
When analyzing German commemorative practices it is vital to not only pay attention to how people
remember the past in various ways, but also to which part of the past is remembered by whom and
at what place. Remembrance of Germany’s national past seems to be dominated by the totalitarian
nationalist-socialist past with its heavy weight of world war and genocide atrocities. Commemoration
of these atrocities are often characterized as ‘negative memory’ or ‘memory of guilt’, as this form of
memory concerns the memory, not of crimes suffered, but of crimes committed (Uhl 2009). Young
(1992) argues that commemorative practices in Germany are at present particularly ambiguous given
the state-sponsored monument’s traditional function as self-aggrandizing locus for national memory.
He even states that “the best German memorial to the Fascist era and its victims may not be a single
memorial at all, but simply the never to be resolved debate over which kind of memory to preserve,
how to do it, in whose name, and to what end. Instead of a fixed figure for memory, the debate itself
– perpetually unresolved amid ever-changing conditions – might be enshrined (Ibid: 270).” Although
Young refers to commemorative practices of the Nazi past, commemorative practices aimed at
confronting and active ‘working through the past’ (Aufarbeitung) instead of merely erecting passive
memorials, are also found in Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen.
In the case of commemorating the totalitarian communist past, this active ‘working through the past’
cannot be analyzed separately from German partition and the impact of (former) east-west
identifications on contemporary German society. When looking at commemorative practices in
Germany there are struggles over which past is to be remembered in what way (Nazi versus
communist past), but struggle also appears in terms of former western versus former eastern views
on the East-German communist past, and between former East-German citizens with conflicting
experiences of the communist regime.
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Germany’s partition was above all an inevitable outcome of the nationalist-socialist ashes and a
resetting of state boundaries due to the geo-political conflict (western capitalism versus eastern
communism/socialism) following World War 2, rather than a ‘natural’ outcome of differing
nationalistic identifications. The problem of what to do with Germany contributed to the breakdown
of relations between wartime allies, just as the growing conflict between those allies affected the
course of German history (Dochartaigh 2010; Pritchard 2009). However, during partition both states
produced new conditions of experience and belonging, and as national imaginations developed in
separate ways so did their approaches towards remembering the nationalist-socialist past (Azaryahu
2003; Till 2005). Although Germany returned to being one political community with a common
national future in 1990, the denominator of common descent – which had united German citizens
before World War 2 – no longer holds its former appeal as many people no longer share a common
recent history and have developed different ideas and experiences of belonging during partition
(Hogwood 2000). The political border that became physically real was supplemented and
strengthened by cultural classifications of East and West and by economic differences (capitalism vs.
socialism) (Dietzsch 2007). Some argue that after reunification these cultural systems of
differentiation became even more relevant (Dietzsch 2007; Thelen 2007). Such differences of
belonging are directly tied to the notion of citizenship. Instead of being only a legal status one can
achieve, citizenship can also be viewed as a disputed marker of national identity, Miller-Idriss (2006)
argues. She demonstrates that ideas of citizenship among working youth in Berlin range from bloodbased membership of the state to citizenship as a choice of membership dependent on where one
feels he/she belongs. It is thus a way to identify oneself with, against or despite of nation-state ideals
and practices. The boundaries between, self, other, nation and state are often expressed and
authorized through spatial configurations and one could even argue there is an ongoing struggle
between the spatial configurations of the state and its inhabitants (Migdal 2004).
One can imagine that partition alone causes competing narratives, spatial and commemorative
practices, let alone the intertwining processes of remembering the national-socialist and the
communist past. What can be seen in contemporary German society is a range of commemorative
practices running parallel to, overlapping and competing with each other over which past is to be
remembered by whom and in what manner. Azaryahu (2003) addresses the difficulties of co-existing
and/or competing pasts in his article on the reorientation of memorial site Buchenwald after the
collapse of the German Democratic Republic in 1989. The concentration camp was transformed into
a national memorial site under Otto Grotewohl, the then East-German prime minister, and was
celebrated as the victory of anti-fascist resistance; the ‘self-liberation’ of the camp belonged to the
foundation narrative of the GDR as an anti-fascist state (Ibid: 5). Before the fall of the GDR the
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narrative of heroic resistance and anti-fascist martyrdom had already lost its credibility and
authority. When it was revealed that the former concentration camp had subsequently served as a
Soviet detention camp (Special Camp no. 2) in which some 30.000 prisoners were held without trial,
the memorial site faced a crisis of meaning. The dual history of the camp became the focus of public
debate on the appropriate way of commemoration: whose memory should be commemorated and
should the victims of the two camps be treated as equal in commemorative terms? Azaryahu argues
that “at the centre of the reorientation procedure was the replacement of the East German paradigm
of memory, which celebrated (communist) heroes and martyrs, by a West German paradigm of
memory which emphasized the victims/perpetrators dichotomy (2003: 1; 2003: 16).”
Azaryahu’s observations are intimately related to my own research. Although Gedenkstätte
Hohenschönhausen has no such ‘competing history’ to deal with, it shares its former purpose as a
Soviet detention camp with Buchenwald (before becoming a Stasi prison, the site was known as
Special Camp no. 3 – a Soviet occupation/transit camp for German prisoners suspected of being
related to Nazi practices). In its purpose of commemorating the totalitarian communist regime, the
memorial site is part of the broader discussion on changing and competing commemorative practices
after reunification.
2.6 Places of Pain and Shame
If the objective of battles over places and their meanings is to establish a specific past and present as
representative and desirable and if feelings of belonging and attachment are created through the
recollection of the past and communicated by place-making processes as Till argues (2005), then how
can we understand present tour narratives by former political prisoners at a former Stasi research
prison? Place-making processes at a former place of trauma8 – embodying an undesirable, even
traumatic past where people who did not want to belong to a totalitarian society were isolated and
detached from the outside world – deconstruct rather than reconstruct a desired mythical past
according to the needs of the future.
Studies about the contemporary meaning of other former civil and political prisons seem to confirm
Roth’s idea9 that memories of the event that occasioned the trauma will only disappear whenever
they become part of the historical consciousness. While Roth repeats the conceptual ambiguity of
collective memory under a different name – historical consciousness –, he aims to emphasize the
8
In medical parlance trauma refers to the impact of a sudden event, leaving long-term, destructive effects on the body.
Extended to psychiatric discourse, it means a similar long-term destructive impact on the personality, resulting in some
form of mental or emotional incapacity. When applying it to the social domain, conditions of cultural trauma involve
disorganization, displacement, or incoherence in culture in other words ‘cultural disorientation (Sztompka 2000: 451452).
9
(cited by McDowell in Logan and Reeves 2009: 215).
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necessity of traumatic events/experiences being remembered (although unclear by whom) before
the trauma itself can disappear. Pollack (2003) argues that trauma, as it occurs in specific locations,
breaks the sense of attachment to a particular place. For survivors of the Srebrenica massacre,
restoring the physical and social environment through burial and memorials mitigates the
consequences of the trauma (Ibid: 798). Nieves (in Logan and Reeves 2009) identifies that former
places of pain10 become tools for achieving social justice in South Africa, and in another chapter of
the same volume McDowell states that negotiations about the meaning of the Maze/Long Kesh
Prison has functioned as an opening up of a painful debate about Northern Ireland’s violent past and
its implications for the post-conflict future. In an interesting analysis of visual culture and public
memory in South Africa, Coombes (2003) develops similar arguments. To her the various (visual)
narratives and performances at Robben Island Museum11 and District 6 Museum12 are attempts to
find ways to embody and to speak the unspeakable – about trauma, imprisonment, separation, and
loss. Both share the need to reanimate particular spaces – the empty prison and the empty city
center (2003: 120).
In her study about memory, politics, and place in Berlin, Till refines her ideas about the workings of
(traumatic) place and identity through the concept of ‘ghosts’ or ‘hauntings’, and argues that places
of memory are created by individuals and social groups to give a shape to felt absences, fears and
desires that haunt contemporary society (2005: 9). Place-making can be a means of confronting
inherited legacies of national violence that haunt and influence people’s everyday lives (Ibid: 12) and,
as she argues further, “through performance and cultural re-enactment, an individual may use his or
her body to communicate memories of the past, to connect with the dead, to confront guilt or anger,
and to work through past traumas in the present (Ibid: 16).” Till argues that by making places into
‘stable sites’ that materially embody the past, people try to give form to their search of a coherent
timeless identity (or ‘mythic self’). This might sound a bit difficult, but I think it simply means that
physical remnants of the past not only function as evidence of former existence and experience, but
can also be seen as a resource to confirm people’s idea of who they are in relation to the past.
2.7 The Commodification of Memory: Ost-Produkte and Narrative Performance
Material embodiments of the East-German past – whether in the form of products that can be
consumed, places/sites of memory that can be visited, books that can be read, or eyewitness reports
10
Defined by Logan and Reeves as a range of places, sites and institutions – such as massacre and genocide sites, places
related to prisoners of war, civil and political prisons and places of ‘benevolent’ internment such as leper colonies and
lunatic asylums – representing the legacy of painful and/or shameful episodes in a national or local community’s history
(2009:1).
11
Robben Island was the place of exile for black male political opponents of the apartheid regime.
12
District 6 in Cape Town was a so-called ‘mixed area’ in which all creeds and colors lived together in harmony, but which
the apartheid government removed by force.
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that can be listened to – seem to have a specific persuasive power. ‘Authentic’ products and
‘authentic’ places are increasingly perceived of as commoditized products of culture, yet their
commodification can paradoxically lead to the decrease of their authentic status. In this paragraph
the relationship between processes of authenticity and commodification is discussed in relation to
places of memory and commemorative practices in former East Germany/Berlin.
In an informative article about the development of the commodified persona in the Native American
heritage industry, Bunten identifies the relationship between authenticity and cultural tourism as
paradoxical. She argues: “on the one hand consumerist culture is often held responsible for
destroying cultural authenticity on the other hand tourism acts as a catalyst to generate heightened
awareness of and preserving authenticity and tradition (2008: 384).” When applied to former EastBerlin one can see this paradox at places such as ‘Checkpoint Charlie’, the close-by Berlin Wall
Museum, and the numerous gift shops surrounding the famous former border crossing between
West- and East-Berlin. The selling of small pieces of the Berlin wall as a material embodiment of the
Cold War past is but one example of commodification. In addition, the remaining pieces of the Wall
still standing have become major tourist attractions and as such have become part of a larger context
in which ‘culture’ is bought and sold. On the one hand, one could argue the commodification of the
Berlin Wall decreases its authenticity because its authenticity was embedded in its function as a
dividing and obstructing device in a cold war context. On the other hand, being able to visit the Wall
and ‘see history for yourself’ can give such an experience a sense of authenticity, for history (or the
remains of history) becomes more real when we see it through our own eyes. Naturally, the
‘authentic’ experience of a visitor today is in no way comparable to the cruel reality of the Wall when
its purpose was to prevent people from leaving the GDR. The ‘authentic experience’ of the Berlin
Wall differs depending on the political reality one is living in. In a post-totalitarian context, the ability
to visit the former border zone as a tourist or buy a piece of the Berlin Wall – whether it really is a
piece of the wall or not – could be identified as a symbolic partaking in the deconstruction of the
Wall and as such, part of the new political reality.
The paradox between authenticity and cultural tourism can also be found in the former Stasi prison
where I conducted the main part of my fieldwork research. The majority of my informants were
former political prisoners, at present working as tour guides at the very place they used to be
imprisoned. How should these tour guides and their narratives as eyewitnesses be addressed? Are
they ‘selling culture’ or ‘the past’, or are they protecting certain aspects of the past from being sold?
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Bunten identifies the construction of the commodified persona13 as a strategy of cultural tourism
workers, who ‘share culture’, to use and manage their product: themselves. She argues that in the
heritage industry, self-commodification is both an economic response to the global experience of the
service sector and a politically motivated expression of identity (2008: 381). Do eyewitness accounts
at the former Stasi prison fall in that same category? Some might argue that identifying eyewitness
accounts of painful pasts as a way of making means in the tourist sector, dishonors or even pollutes
the original (authentic) motives of ‘uncovering the past’. Yet the concept of commodified persona
shares similarities with the historical persona (eyewitnesses often referred to themselves as living
history) encountered in the former Stasi prison. In the following chapters these similarities will be
discussed in more detail and with reference to the collected research data.
Related to the commodified persona in the heritage industry is Duara’s argument that the sacred
myths of nationhood and authenticity have become increasingly commodified because of increasing
exposure to market forces (2003). This, he argues, generates anxiety which, in turn, produces a
greater drive to consume cultural symbols of belonging. Although Duara develops his argument
relating to nationalism in China, both Veenis (1999) and Bach (2002) identify similar processes in
Germany. Veenis argues in her thesis on material culture in East Germany that due to feelings of
alienation caused by the Wende14, East-Germans try to find a new hold in material things as “material
objects with their fixed, permanent and material form do not embody a phase in a developmental
process, but they represent the contrary: something solid and stable (1999: 103).” Bach makes a
similar point when arguing that the consumption of Ostprodukte as a production of cultural symbols
represents a strategy for (former) easterners not to be speechless in a field of cultural production
that is now (after the fall of the Wall) dominated by a western hegemonic discourse (2002).
Examining the relationship between consumer behavior and the production of identity is an original
way of looking at processes of identification. Place-making processes are part of the same power
struggle in which Ostprodukte are embedded; they both function as a way to authorize conceptions
of self, other and nation. However, the guided tours, in which experiences of trauma and injustice
are related to a specific physical place (the former Stasi prison), were declared by several
eyewitnesses as an attempt to undo Ostalgie.15
Processes of identification; ‘who am I’, and belonging; ‘where or with whom do I belong’, are thus
tied to material forms, whether in the form of products or places, to achieve a sense of permanence
13
Self-commodification being defined as a set of beliefs and practices in which an individual chooses to construct a
marketable identity product while striving to avoid alienating him- or herself (Bunten 2008: 381).
14
The German term used for the revolution in 1989 and its accompanied changes.
15
The perceived nostalgia for the East (Ost) in Germany is commonly referred to as Ostalgie.
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and stability. Although processes of (n)Ostalgie and Gedenken (commemoration) seem to be
contradicting forms of remembrance in Germany – the first being associated with the regretful or
wistful memory of an earlier time, and the second with the honoring of those who suffered injustices
or even death – this thesis is an attempt to illustrate the underlying motives of various forms of
remembering, their common grounds, and their differences. The commemorative practices
examined in the former Stasi prison will be the focal point, yet understanding them properly is only
possible when keeping in view the context in which they operate. Based on my research data the
perceived position of the former Stasi prison within the surrounding district – the
Gedenkstätte/former prison being located in the former prohibited district from which all Stasi
services operated –, as well as their operation in the broader memorial landscape of other
commemorative places and practices in former East Berlin, will be discussed.
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Photo: Corridor cellar wing new prison building HsH, 30/11/2010.
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CHAPTER 3. ROUTES AND ROUTINES: REFLECTIONS ON FIELDWORK, METHODOLOGY AND KNOWLEDGE.
3.1 Introduction
According to Herbert, meaning-systems are place-bound and place-making; social groups create and
maintain themselves through meaning-systems that are made real through their geographical
inscription (2000: 557). He argues that ethnography is a uniquely useful method for uncovering the
processes and meanings that undergird this sociospatial life (Ibid: 550). Ethnography rests upon
participant observation, a method that underlies all anthropological research. In conducting my own
research – aiming to understand where and how people move within urban geographical place, how
they give meaning to those places, and how these places structure their (national) identifications and
notions of belonging – participant observation proved to be of vital importance. The central aim of
this chapter is to reflect on the way in which the routes and routines of my research subjects,
especially the former prisoners working at Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen as tour guides, became
my routes and routines, and how this influenced my perception while collecting data. The title
‘routes and routines’ refers to the guided tours (each tour had a similar route), the routine or
practice of conducting such tours, and also to my own (traveling) routes and routines during
fieldwork and how these overlap. By reflecting on these routes and routines I will explain that the
experiences and knowledge I gained during this research cannot be separated from the spatial
practices I observed and talked about with my research subjects. This chapter, next to reflecting on
methodological choices and accompanied struggles in the field, therefore also makes a claim about
the intertwining of (visual) methodology and (spatial) knowledge.
3.2 Kiez und Knast: Research in a Non-Traditional Field16
During my research amongst (former) East Berlin citizens, the mapping of place and space was crucial
in understanding both feelings of
belonging
and
alienation
regarding two specific places:
Café Sybille and Gedenkstätte
Hohenschönhausen. Café Sybille,
located on the Karl-Marx-Allee in
the former East Berlin district
Friedrichshain, is both museum
and café. It has a permanent
exhibition on the history of the
Photo: Exhibition of local historical GDR architecture in Cafe Sybille, 3/12/2010.
16
Kiez is a German word for the neighborhood one lives in and is familiar with. Knast is a German word for prison.
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Karl-Marx-Allee (previously Stalin-Allee) – this Allee was widely known because of its prestigious GDR
building project the ‘Arbeiterpaläste –, and it organizes lectures, concerts, and readings related to
the GDR. It also provides for guided- or audio-tours through the neighborhood. It is a café noted by
both tourists and locals.
Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen, the former
Stasi research prison and part of the prohibited
district from which the GDR state security
(Stasi) operated, is located in the former East
Berlin district Hohenschönhausen and is now a
memorial site where former inmates conduct
guided tours.
Although I identified them as focal points
within the first two weeks of my research, the
idea of comparing the spatial practices related
to both places was challenging as the data I
collected in both places was far from balanced.
The
imbalance
had
several
reasons:
establishing a trusting relationship with café
Photo: Guided tour at Gedenkstätte HsH, 07/10/2010.
visitors in the time span of a café-visit proved to be much harder than establishing a relationship with
people who worked at the Gedenkstätte. This, of course, had to do with the fact that the target
group in Café Sybille consisted of (occasional) visitors, while the target group in the Gedenkstätte
consisted of people who regularly worked there. As their work schedules were made available to me
each week, I had the opportunity to arrange which tour I would participate in and contact the tour
guides beforehand. My regular contact with Helmuth Frauendorfer17(member of the staff and,
among other things, the tour guides contact person), was especially valuable; he knew a lot about
each tour guide and their background stories. Our informal coffee/cigarette breaks were, besides
being a necessary means to unwind, often a chance to be introduced to other tour guides working at
the Gedenkstätte. After some weeks of participating in guided tours, my regular presence was
noticed and information about me and my research began to circulate among other tour guides as
well. The breaks between tours were increasingly spent together with tour guides and I gradually
became ‘part of the group’. These in-between moments proved to be a most interesting source of
17
Helmuth Frauendorfer is a German (German-Romanian) writer, journalist, documentary maker, human right activist and
since April 2010 consultant for political education and deputy director at Gedenkstätte HsH.
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work-related stories, commentaries, jokes and opportunities to meet other tour guides or schedule
interviews or participation in tours.
Research in Café Sybille was somehow the opposite. Although I gathered interesting data by
attending several of the organized meetings and lectures, the opportunities for further meetings and
interviews were scarce. The insider position I developed in the Gedenkstätte never fully bloomed
here, which is not surprising when a target group primarily consists of irregular visitors. I had no idea
if visitors would fit the description of my research population – former East Berlin citizens who had
lived in the neighborhood during partition –; I also did not know if they were regular visitors or
tourists; if they were willing to talk, or would dismiss my attempt to speak with them as an impolite
intrusion of their privacy. Although a café is a public place, a visitor’s purpose is not necessarily
meeting me. After a few weeks, in which I visited the café once a week, I had only managed to get
one proper interview as I had difficulty intruding on people during their visit to the café. As I was
already participating in guided tours in the Gedenkstätte I did not have time to visit the Café more
often. I decided to only visit the café on special evenings, when they had organized public lectures or
readings related to the GDR. This way, I knew for sure that the visitors would be more likely to fit the
description of my research population and their presence on such organized occasions suggested
their willingness to talk about their past. Nevertheless, the data collected from those gatherings was
not comparable in value to the data I gathered at the former Stasi prison, which consisted of both
public tours and individual follow-up interviews. However, I decided not to disregard the Café Sybille
data altogether, but use it as a (counter) context to the commemorative practices in the former Stasi
prison.
3.3 Changes and Choices in the Field
Although I had already determined the specifics of my methodological approach in my research
proposal, my research location(s) was only defined in terms of a city district. Once in the field,
depending on contacts, opportunities, and accessibility, research locations would be determined
more specifically. Such an open approach to the field can lead to alterations in methodological
approach, although I do believe that even if a research location has been defined in advance,
responding and adjusting one’s methods to local processes is almost inevitable and perhaps even a
natural consequence of fieldwork research. Methods stem from experience and need to be revised
and refined according to the research context. In response to the early contact I developed with
Helmuth Frauendorfer, who showed an immediate interest in my research and recognized the
potential of the former prison and its guided tours as a research setting, I let go of my initial choice of
restricting my research in former East Berlin to the district Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. I had selected
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this specific district, while preparing my research, because Kreuzberg used to be West and
Friedrichshain East during the partition of Germany; a district in which I could well examine past and
present experiences of place and notions of belonging of former East Berlin citizens. Yet the
opportunity of including a former GDR prison site and experiences of former (political) prisoners in
my research – although located in a different district – was both practical (I only had 4.5 months to
conduct my research and therefore every possibility to make contact with former East Berlin citizens
was crucial), and provided me with a potential chance to compare two very different places.
While my research became increasingly focused on practices at the Gedenkstätte and experiences of
former (political) prisoners, I realized that their narratives of suffering and injustice were not
representative of the experiences of all former East Berlin (or East German) citizens. Although my
research was not limited to the spatial practices and imprisonment narratives at the Gedenkstätte, I
had to reflect on how I could represent other experiences. In researching practices and narratives
surrounding Café Sybille, I was able to contextualize (yet not diminish the importance of) the
experiences of former prisoners. More than once I considered looking into the possibilities of finding
and approaching former Stasi employees. Though I was informed by several former prisoners of a
cafe near the Gedenkstätte where former Stasi employees, even officers, were spotted regularly, I
chose not to explore this possibility for several reasons. I felt attempts to get in contact with former
Stasi employees could jeopardize the trusting relationship I had established with former prisoners,
something I did not want to risk. As this place was located near the Gedenkstätte, it was likely I
would be spotted by either former prisoners while entering/leaving this café (which could jeopardize
my relationship with them) or by former Stasi employees while entering and leaving the
Gedenkstätte (which would made it highly unlikely that they would confide in me). While I did not
know this for sure, I did realize it would be difficult to establish a trusting relationship in the time
span of a few months with people who had worked for and supported a regime which is now publicly
condemned.
3.4 Entering and Leaving the Field
When thinking about how my preselected (ideas about) methodology influenced my research and
how the specific place of my research influenced and altered my methodology, I remembered one of
my main struggles during my research. A few times each week I would travel from Hauptbahnhof to
the memorial site in Hohenschönhausen to participate in guided tours from former prisoners or
conduct interviews at the site. Every time I travelled there by S-Bahn and Straβenbahn, I would doubt
the legitimacy of me entering and leaving ‘the field’. I felt like a bad anthropologist not spending all
my time at this place. Although I knew it was not possible to actually live there (it was a working
space), I still thought I was not present often enough to see what was ‘really’ going on. I knew my
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physical disability (lack of energy) was one reason I could not actually be there every single day, but
this nevertheless did frustrate and dissatisfy me. Of course my idea of entering ‘the field’ was flawed.
Weeks later I started to realize that my research field was Berlin, and that every experience,
including traveling to the memorial site, added to knowledge of the context in which I was doing
research.
The second error: conducting research is the same as collecting data. Each week I needed hours,
sometimes days, to organize when to participate in which tour, to contact people, to prepare for
interviews, to prepare my camera gear and structure my thoughts on field experiences. Of course I
felt guilty that I did not collect data all the time. Naturally all these preparations are part of doing
research, something I realized after my supervisor’s enthusiastic and heartfelt reply to my first
fieldwork report.
It was only much later, when back in the Netherlands, that it dawned on me that my routes and
routines during fieldwork were far more similar to the people I was conducting research amongst
then I had realized at the time. Entering and leaving the former prison, as I did, was exactly what the
tour guides/former prisoners did. They did not live there, but travelled there from different parts of
the city a few times a week or month. They all lived somewhere else in the city, outside the
neighborhood of the former prison, just as I did. Tour guides working at the Gedenkstätte have their
work and their background as former prisoners of a totalitarian regime in common, yet such similar
experiences do not necessarily lead to the formation and/or experience of community outside this
shared field. Various eyewitnesses have even argued that being able to leave this site and this
neighborhood behind when they finish their work is vital for their work as a tour guide. The ability to
enter and leave the site may at the same time be viewed as the opportunity to enter and leave the
past. In this light, the dispersal of eyewitnesses outside the former prison site could be seen as part
of an inevitable move to gain control over the past, one that is no less necessary than their
movements inside the former prison as a tour guide.
3.5 Mapping Place and Space: Guided Tours and Video Elicitation
There are several options to examine the relationship between physical place and the meanings
attached to them. In my research proposal I argued that mapping places (for example by
neighborhood drawings or creating one’s own city/neighborhood map) by me and my participants
would give insight into how people perceive their physical surroundings. During fieldwork research I
developed the routine of participating in the guided tours of former prisoners. Although I often
reflected on the kind of data I gathered by filming those guided tours, to me it seemed I was only
gathering bits and pieces of everything that was going on. In a sense I was right. Everyday more than
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ten guided tours were conducted and I would only participate in 1-3 each week. I was, however,
participating in the daily routine of the tour guides. Only much later did I grasp that the guided tours
I was participating in were the routes and routines of the guided tours. Participating in and
videotaping these guided tours proved an excellent way to map the tour guides routes at the
Gedenkstätte. As each tour took 1.5 to 2 hours, drawing the routes while participating in them and
simultaneously making field notes about the content would have been impossible. Videotaping
enabled me to record both route and content at the same time. As Collier and Collier argue, only film
and video can record the realism of time and motion and the nuances of process, emotion and other
subtleties of behavior and communication that still images can only suggest (1986: 144). I chose to
film entire guided tours without interruption or cuts, and made the movements of the tour guides
define the movement of my camera as much as possible. The angle of the camera was thus not
based on my own selection or storyline but on the movements and narrative of the tour guide.
Collier and Collier define this as research film as it is made to contain relatively undisturbed process
and behavior (1986: 152). With this video record I was able to prepare the individual follow-up
interviews with the tour guides whose tours I had participated in. Although it proved to be too time
consuming18 to watch these taped tours together with the tour guides during the interviews
(although I did so with one tour guide), I could refer to the specific content of each tour, the reason
for the specific route chosen during this tour, the relationship between the specific places during the
route at which they stopped to explain and narrate and the way in which I had observed they
used/positioned themselves in specific rooms or corridors. That way, the specific route of each tour
guide provided the basis for the follow-up interview. Using the routes and content of the tours as a
basis for the interviews helped to reveal how meaning was created and provided the tour guides
with the chance to explain the reasons for the way in which they structured their routes and
narratives. They could identify interpretations I had made during the tours and shared during the
interviews as (in)accurate or enrich these interpretations. As Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater argue, the
researcher needs to train himself to gain an insider and outsider perspective (2007: 176), and
comparing my recordings and interpretations with theirs helped me to do that.
Adopting the distribution used by the Gedenkstätte, who categorized eyewitnesses according to the
time periods in which they had been imprisoned – 1945 to 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s or 1980’s – I
18
Most follow-up interviews were scheduled in between the guided tours at the Gedenkstätte, which usually gave me 1
hour or 1.5 hour to conduct the interview. This was sufficient, yet not enough to watch the video record of the tour
together and discuss it. As an appreciation for their time and investment in my research I gave each tour guide a DVD with
their own video-recorded guided tour (which was highly appreciated) and promised to send copies of my thesis to those
who had confirmed their interest in this. Although the principle of reciprocity as an ethical stance during fieldwork is
important, the main reason I asked each participant if they were interested in receiving a copy of my thesis, was based on
the idea of informed consent. I think it is only fair to give them the opportunity to read the results and thus be able to
discuss them.
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selected tour guides from each period of time (provided of course they were conducting tours during
the months of my research) to be able to compare prison narratives of different periods. This
resulted in participant-observation of eleven different guided tours, each tour taking approximately
1.5 hours. Ten eyewitness tours were recorded with a small video-camera, permitted by the tourguides, the memorial staff, as well as the visitors participating in the guided tours. Collier and Collier
stress the importance of systematic recordings of the same range of phenomena during fieldwork to
be able to reveal underlying structures (1986: 163). As all video records depicted the same routine –
the time span of a guided tour19 – and as each video record was based on the movements and
narrative of the various tour guides, a systematic recording, containing comparable data, emerged.
These visual recordings enabled me to create detailed maps of these tours. These maps depict the
particulars of each tour route; thus allowing a comparison of both spatial characteristics, narrative
and how these (may) influence each other in the organization, coordination, and content of guided
tours.
The data overview below shows participant observations (PO) of guided tours and interviews with
eyewitnesses at the Gedenkstätte. Though this data is the focus of my thesis, I have attended several
other events such as the yearly commemoration of Special Camp No. 3, an international conference
about dictatorships in Eastern Europe, an internal lecture at the Gedenkstätte, three book
launches/lectures about GDR-related topics in Café Sybille, a meeting of collectors of GDR-items in
Café Sybille and conducted five other formal and five informal interviews, apart from the numerous
informal conversations with people attending the tours or other events in which I participated.
PO Tours HSH: date/hours
26-08-2010, 01:25
01-09-2010, 01:52
07-10-2010, 01:21
08-10-2010, 01:28
25-08-2010, 01:31
08-10-2010, 01:19
01-11-2010, 01:41
10-09-2010, 01:16
Tour Guides
Horst Jänichen (‘40/’50)
15-09-2010, 01:32
12-08-2010, 01:30
16-09-2010, 01:48
21-09-2010, 01:03
11-09-2010, 01:30
18-10-2010, 01:30
Cliewe Juritza (’80)
Thomas Raufeisen (’80)
Interviews: date/hours
13-10-2010, 00:30 (part 1)
21-10-2010, 00:28 (part 2)
14-10-2010, 00:49
19-10-2010, 01:36
21-09-2010, 00:57
11-11-2010, 02:09
10-11-2010, 01:03
20-09-2010, 01:04
26-11-2010, 01:11
27-09-2010, 01:08
18-11-2010, 00:55
Michael Bradler (’80)
Harry Santos (’80)
Historian working at HsH
18-11-2010, 00:59
-
Peter Rüegg (‘40/’50)
Hartmut Richter (’60)
Edda Schönherz (’70)
Gisela Quasdorf (’70)
Wolfgang Warnke (’70)
Matthias Melster (’80)
19
Every guided tour I participated in was followed up by an in-depth interview, which was also video recorded. These
interviews were not only recorded to be able to literally transcribe them, but also to be able to review silences, gestures
and emotions during the interviews. Next to the systematic recordings of the guided tours, the successive interviews are
thus also comparable in both content and behavioral patterns.
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BLOGPOST FRAGMENT: DIE EWIGE LAMPE.20
The first five weeks of anthropological field research are already behind me. My 'past' grows with
each day that passes. Although this might sound a bit melancholic or nostalgic, when you reside in
other people’s pasts (former GDR citizens) every day, you soon notice that ‘the past’ is a strange
construction. It is a timestamp; something was, but is no longer. At least that is what people often
say. Yet nothing is further from the truth. Although the past seems to be something intangible, there
are many different ways in which Berlin citizens try to grasp, preserve or guard the past.
In the past few weeks I began my research into past and present experiences of place and citizenship
of former GDR citizens in the former Stasi Prison in Hohenschönhausen. At the time (during the
existence of the GDR) the prison was a strict secret, located in the forbidden district in BerlinHohenschönhausen from which the Stasi operated, and virtually no one knew this prison existed.
Older maps of Berlin only display a large white spot. The prison did not ‘exist’. Nowadays, former
inmates carry out guided tours for groups of visitors. Their stories are poignant: arrested for
attempted escape to the West, arrested for political opposition – which basically meant every act or
non-act disliked by the SED and the Stasi – some even betrayed by parents or friends. Although each
former inmate has his or her own personal history to tell, their stories are similar. They all tell of a
dictatorship where freedom was confined to the borders of the GDR and restricted within the SED
party ideology boundaries, thus, no freedom.
During each guided tour, die Ewige Lampe (the eternal light), located in the U-Boat (underground)
cells, is pointed out and commented on. Illuminating each cell 24 hours a day, this ‘eternal’ lamp
disturbed the sleep cycle of the prisoners. Although the lamps no longer light the cells 24 hours each
day, its name – once coined by prisoners – seems to have gained new meaning. It is no longer part of
a torture method, yet it reminds me of the candles one can ignite in Catholic churches in memory of
the deceased. Die Ewige Lampe as a symbol to actively remember, instead of eliminating the past of
this place. The former Stasi prison is no longer a white spot on the map. By telling and listening to the
personal stories of former prisoners, the secret history of this prison is exposed and uncovered. One
could compare it to a scratch card: at first there is nothing to see, yet when your fingernail scrapes
the surface of the card, a number, sign or image slowly appears. So it is with this place: the former
prisoners, little by little, scratch away the ignorance, the hidden, the white spot on the map, by
sharing their history with visitors. Thus, the white spot slowly but surely transforms into a detailed
map on which a harrowing past can be seen.
20
http://mirinthisworld.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html (translation by author)
Photo: Lamp in U-boat cell HsH, 30/11/2010.
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CHAPTER 4. WALKING THROUGH THE PAST: MEMORY AND TRAUMA AT THE FORMER STASI PRISON.
“Now I have the keys. I can get out. This makes it completely different” (T.R. eyewitness)
“To be embodied is to occupy a portion of space from out of which we both undergo given
experiences and remember them (Till 2005: 16).
4.1 Introduction
The previous blog post fragment reflecting on the meaning of ‘the eternal light’ is but one example of
numerous manifestations in which spatial characteristics and narrative proved to be interconnected
at the former prison site. In presenting the locations of my research and addressing some of the
methodological choices and adjustments, I have already brought up one of the most important
insights gained from participating in the guided tours at the Gedenkstätte: the ability to enter and
leave the site as an essential part of the tour guides work, providing an opportunity to enter and
leave the past.
The weight of holding the keys, both literally and figuratively, as commented upon by Thomas
Raufeisen during his guided tour, applies well to the task I am faced with now; to carefully present
and analyze the most relevant research findings and the inevitable selection of what data should be
presented and what can be left out. Central to this chapter is the paradox of the tours as a way to
unlock the past and at the same time keep it at a bearable distance. The objective of this chapter is
to show some of the spatial and narrative dimensions and ambiguities that characterize the
processes of memory, trauma, and place at the Gedenkstätte. The following sub-question functioned
as a guideline: How are experiences and perceptions of place meaningful in narrating the past at
Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen?
4.2 Submerging and Surfacing Again: U-Boat Experiences
Entering the underground cell-block, the concrete floor is bare, brown-grey in color and stripped
from its old carpet which, at the time, functioned to silence the footsteps of guards. There is little to
see except the blotchy yellowish-white walls with crumbling plaster, grey steel cell doors with flaking
door paint and heavy metal locks, cells with the sole furniture of a wooden bunk, a light bulb behind
iron bars, a small vent in the ceiling, and a peephole on the outside of the cell door. When the doors
of the outer row of cells are closed – the only cells presently receiving daylight – the corridors look
dim, only lit with cool, fluorescent lights. Without the carpet, visitors’ footsteps sound hollow and
the voices of tour guides resonate through the corridors.
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Photo: U-Boat cell corridor, 30/11/2011.
When tour guides lead their groups – usually 15 to 20 people – inside one of the joint confinement
cells (6 out of 10 tour guides did), the air soon becomes stuffy and humid even though the cell door
remains open. Inside the cell it is even dimmer, only lit by a small light bulb behind an iron grille
above the cell door. The tour guides comment that although officially meant for five prisoners, often
ten to twelve people were in such a cell with only a wooden bunk stretched over the width of the cell
to sleep on, a 24 hour lit lamp, a shared bucket to relieve oneself, hardly any ventilation and
consequently such high humidity that prisoners clothes and hair sometimes grew moldy. When
crammed together inside a cell, the conditions become palpable.
One of the first striking features I observed to be repeated in various ways in every guided tour, was
the relationship between underground prison conditions and the various references to the prisoners
nickname of the cellar prison; U-Boat. Matthias Melster, though not having been imprisoned in the
cellar prison himself, gives one of the most extended explanations: “Als das hier noch Gefängnis war,
war alles in einem matten Grauton gestrichen, ähnlich wie die Türen heute noch. In diesem Grauton
waren alle Wände und Decken lackiert. Und daher kommt der Spitzname, die Gefangenen haben es
das U-Boot getauft. Die lebten wie in einem U-Boot unter der Oberfläche. Hatten hier wie in einem UBoot keine Fenster. […] Und da passte noch was; dann war hier die Luft sehr feucht und dann
kondensierte mal schon das Wasser an der Decke und das tropfte und es lief schon mal was Wasser
von den Wänden runter. Das war eben das Kondenswasser aus dem Atem“ (guided tour M.M.). Gisela
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Quasdorf, Cliewe Juritza, and Michael Bradler emphasize similar physical characteristics in explaining
the cellar prison’s nickname in their respective guided tours. The full extent of the meaning of this
nickname came in bits and pieces, for example when I participated in Peter Rüegg’s tour. Peter, a
small, modest man, well into in his seventies and one of the eyewitnesses who had been imprisoned
in the ‘U-boat’, describes the various operations on the prison site to his group quite thoroughly and
then raises his own experiences in the cellar prison we were about to enter: „Und ich weiß noch ich
hatte das Gefühl absoluter Hilflosigkeit und Verlorenheit. Hier unten in diesem verdammten Keller
können sie alles mit dir machen was sie wollen… Niemand weiß wo du hier bist. Niemand weiß wann
du heraus kommst. […] Das hier war kein Gefängnis in dieser Strafvollzuganstalt, sondern das war ein
Untersuchungsgefängnis. Wer hier drin war sollte etwas aussagen, sollte ein Protokoll
unterschreiben, sollte eine Schuld eingestehen, sollte Hintermänner, Mittäter nennen, und da war das
Gefühl von Angst und Unsicherheit natürlich höchst willkommen“ (guided tour P.R.). Though the
physical characteristics of the cellar prison alone give rise to the U-boat resemblance, Peter Rüegg
extends the comparison to the emotional experience of being cut off from the outer world as part of
the secret operation of the Stasi and their objective to extract confessions. The underground design
of the cellar prison not only concealed inside practices from the outer world, but also caused
deliberate uncertainty among both prisoners and people outside, who were also kept in the dark
about the whereabouts of prisoners. Peter Rüegg continues: „Wir nannten dieses Keller-Gefängnis
das U-Boot. U-boot deshalb, wenn man darunter gesessen hatte, hatte man das Gefühl in einem auf
dem Meer abgetauchten U-Boot zu sein. Man hatte keinerlei Beziehung zum Himmel, man wusste
nicht ob’s regnet oder ob die Sonne scheint, man wusste nicht ob’s Tag oder Nacht ist, man verlor das
Zeitgefühl und auch das war ein wohlkalkulierter Teil ihrer Vernehnmungsstrategie“ (guided tour
P.R.). Through this particular sequence it becomes clear that the meaning of the name ‘U-boat’ both
indicates the physical characteristics of the cellar prison as well as the conscious deployment of these
characteristics to generate certain feelings to coerce information, and the emotional experience of
being under the ground. The U-boat comparison is carried further by Thomas Raufeisen, who, having
been imprisoned in the eighties in the new building, emphasizes the connection between the
nickname ‘U-boat’ and the secrecy of both the prison location and the lack of information about
prisoners, which applied to imprisonment in the cellar prison (in use until about 1960) as well as
imprisonment in the new building (in use from 1960 to 1989): “Das hier war ein geheimer Ort. Keiner
wusste, man wusste schon es gibt Stasi-Gefängnisse, natürlich, aber gerade nicht wo die gewesen
sind. Man wusste nicht wohin die Gefangenen gebracht wurden, was mit denen gemacht wurde, wie
lange sie weg waren, ob sie wieder auftauchen – genau das war viel bedrohlicher” (guided tour T.R.).
Especially interesting is Thomas’ choice of vocabulary here; the word “auftauchen” meaning ‘surface’
or ‘float up’. The U-boat analogy is even directly related to the process of remembering and
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forgetting by Cliewe Juritza, who, during our interview, describes his failing memories as “U-Boote
die immer unterwegs sind” and the emergence of a forgotten memory as “ein aufgetauchtes UBoot”. His remark reflects the lack of control over recall, which was commented upon by many of the
tour guides during our interviews. These subsequent interviews opened my eyes to the possibility of
the guided tours being a way to both share the past and at the same time keep it at a bearable
distance. Before delving into this, several other spatial and narrative dynamics need be discussed.
4.3 The New Prison Building: A Spatial Guidebook
All eyewitnesses follow the historical timeline with their routes, starting with a historical overview of
the site as a “Großküche” during WW 2, a Soviet Special Camp (July 1945 until October 1946), and
start guiding their groups through the U-boat – which was established as a Soviet remand prison at
the end of 1946 in the basement of the former canteen and taken over by the Ministerium für
Staatssicherheit (MfS) in 1951 –, followed by a route through the three-story building behind the old
cellar prison, which, in 1961, replaced the U-boat cellar prison21. In the new prison building
eyewitnesses generally guide their groups from the right cellar wing to the left interrogation wing, as
such following the sequence of operations through which they had gone through at their time of
imprisonment; from the indoor garage to the arrival room, through the cellar wing, identification
room, Haftrichterraum (law officer room), through the interrogators wing, and often ending in one of
the outdoor cells (see Figure 1, page 37). Both the architectural features and the inner spatial
characteristics of the buildings, function as a sort of spatial guidebook for the tour guides. The main
distinction between the cellar prison and the new prison building is the transition from physical to
psychological torture methods, commented upon in every guided tour. In her tour, Edda Schönherz
summarizes this transition with the following words: “So ging man von der physischen Folter, also
von der körperlichen Folter über zur psychischen Folter, weil die Lagen auf der Seele sieht man nicht”.
Hartmut Richter emphasized: “So’n Schlag tat zwar weh aber nicht wie die andere Methoden”.
Not only were all Stasi officers trained in legal profession at the Stasi law school in Potsdam,
‘Operative Psychologie’ was a research and training specialty dealing with the symptoms, conditions,
and laws of mental experiences, and the mental control of behavior and actions. The findings were
used to undermine and disrupt political opponents in the GDR, and, as all former prisoners inform
during their tours, were also applied in this research prison. The main objective of this ‘Operative
Psychologie’ is repeated over and over during the tours and is well articulated, as by Thomas
Raufeisen: “Der Gefangene sollte ein Gefühl der Machtlosigkeit, Rechtlosigkeit erreichen. Ohne Hilfe,
ohne Rechte, ohne Kontrolle, ohne Perspektive. Eines der schlimmsten Dinge die man erlebte war
21
For more information on the site’s history and uses: “The Prohibited District. The Stasi Retricted Area BerlinHohenschönhausen” by Peter Erler and Hubertus Knabe (2008).
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auch hier die Ungewissheit, nicht zu wissen was werden würde”. The most important methods for
achieving this were isolation, disinformation, and time. These methods were not only applied to, for
example, interrogation methods, but are also visible in architectural features of the new building;
such as the glass brick windows through which prisoners could not see anything except distinguishing
night and day; the traffic light systems on the corners of the cellar wings used to warn guards, who
led a prisoner to or from an interrogation, if there was another prisoner on the way and thus ensured
the prisoners would not see each other; guards operating the lights in the cells from the outside, and
slamming the iron bars on the cell doors to disrupt sleeping prisoners: “Wenn wir diese Position nicht
hatten wurde die Türlücke aufgerissen und wurde rein geschrien ‚Schlafposition einnehmen!‘ Oder, sie
haben es gerade gehört, dieses Geräusch mit den Riegel” (guided tour Wolfgang Warnke). The
consequences of this sleep disturbance are clearly expressed by Matthias Melster: “Ich wurde jede
Nacht mindestens sieben, acht Mal geweckt. Ging bis zu fünfzehn, sechzehn Mal in der Nacht. Am
nächsten Morgen ist man völlig fertig. […] Menschen nicht schlafen lassen ist völkerrechtliche Folter!”
The peepholes, through which the prisoners were observed every few minutes, are mentioned as
well to point to the (im)balance of power: “Also, Sie müssen noch mal sehen, da drinnen sehen Sie
nur das Auge, aber das Auge sieht ja den ganzen Menschen. Der Unterschied” (guided tour Cliewe
Juritza). And, importantly, the spatial layout of the interrogation rooms, in which the interrogator
was always seated in a nice furnished chair behind a large desk, against the desk some more tables
and chairs, and in the corner behind the door a wooden stool as seat for the prisoner, opposite the
window and therefore blinded by the light (except when the curtains were closed). This conscious
layout established the subordinate spatial relationship between prisoner and interrogator in the
interrogation room. Even the big telephone standing on the interrogators desk was used to
manipulate and frighten the prisoner during the interrogation by making fake phone calls. The
psychological methods, translated in spatial characteristics, are even visible in the outdoor cells.
Every tour guide points out the iron grid above these cells to emphasize its mere psychological
reason as the walls were too high to climb and guards were standing above with guns. Horst Jänichen
puts it this way: “Selbst wenn man rausgeht für ein bisschen frische Luft, der Mensch war immer in
einem Käfig, immer eingesperrt”. Tour guides narrative sequences are thus connected to visible
spatial characteristics such as door locks, lamps or glass brick windows, a connection well formulated
by Cliewe Juritza, who explains to his audience: “Wir haben hier Geschichten zum anschauen,
Geschichten zum anfassen (pointing to the alarm wire on the walls), Geschichten zum riechen. Wie es
riecht in diesem Gebäude, roch es in der DDR”.
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22
Figure 1. Guided tour H.J. 26-08-2010 (eyewitness ‘40/’50). The central block directly in front of the entrance gate shows
the 3-storey building which now houses the administration offices of employees, the library and several meeting rooms.
The green-marked block attached to it is the map of the underground prison cells, also called U-boat. These U-boat prison
cells were used by both the Soviet secret service as well as the GDR secret service (Stasi). The blue highlighted part is the
new 3-storey building which, after 1960, was used as prison instead of the U-boat. The left wing is the prison wing (3 floors
high) continuing until mid-center wing, the right wing is the interrogation wing (also 3 floors high).
1 – meeting room; 2 – U-boat cell; 3 – along torture cells/U-boat cell block; 4 – next to standing cell; 5 – indoor garage; 6 –
st
outside rose garden & underground Gummi cells; 7 – 1 floor new building – cell wing; 8 – arrival room; 9 – in front of cell
nd
126; 10 – corner cell wing/traffic light system; 11 – identification room; 12 – Haftrichterraum; 13 – 2 floor interrogation
wing/interrogators room 289; 14 – outside in front of interrogators wing/opposite the prison hospital; 15 – in front of
outdoor cells; 16 – inside outdoor cell/Tiger Cage.
22
The digitalized maps of the other tours can be viewed in appendices 1-9.
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Photos: (top left) Traffic light system corner cellar wing, 11/09/2010; (top middle) Floor strip indicating where prisoners
had to face the wall when someone else was on the way, 11/09/2010; (top right) Outdoor cell/Tiger Cage, 12/08/2010;
(middle left) Alarm thread corridor cellar wing, 08/10/2010; (middle middle) Eyewitness demonstrating clanging door
locks, 16/09/2010; (middle right) Light switch outside cell, 30/11/2010; (bottom left) Cell interior new building,
07/10/2010; (bottom right) Eyewitness demonstrating sleep position, 10/09/2010.
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These narrative sequences are also tied to the former purpose and experience of the various spaces,
or to specific incidents related to a room. In the indoor garage, guides tell about transportation as a
way to disorient prisoners (driving around for hours before entering the prison site), or to create
uncertainty and fear by taking prisoners for a blind ride. The arrival room, in which prisoners had to
hand over their personal belongings, summons guides to talk about losing their belongings such as
clothes and wallets as well as the loss of their identity: “Wenn man da vorne durch die Pforte
gegangen ist, war man nicht mehr Meier, Schultz, Lehmann. Ab da war man nur noch eine Nummer.
Das bedeutet man hat Ihnen Ihre Identität genommen. Und wenn Sie keinen Namen mehr haben, sind
Sie niemand mehr, Sie sind nur noch eine Nummer” (Edda Schönherz). The only ones who knew the
prisoners names were the interrogators. This was not so much prison protocol but a well thought-out
strategy, explained further by Thomas Raufeisen: “Da hat man seine Persönlichkeit verloren. Eine
Nummer bekam man, der Name wurde weggenommen. […] Also man ist dann sehr reduziert, also die
Sinneseindrucke, Sozialkontakte, fast aufgehört, so das man übrigens auch sehr sensibel reagiert
wenn Interaktion wieder stattfindet. Keine dieser Aktionen war zufällig, alles hatte einen Grund, in
negativer Hinsicht natürlich”. In or in front of the cells, guides talk about the cell conditions which
look quite good, but in which they had nothing to do except sit, sleep, and think. In the same
manner, all other rooms in the new prison building are discussed with respect to their purpose (for
example interrogation processes are discussed in the interrogation room) and related to the
eyewitnesses’ personal experiences.
4.4 Narrating Trauma; Confronting the Past
Initially I was surprised by the clarity and ease with which tour guides narrated about their prison
experiences. Though I had no particular expectations about the guided tours, narrating about a
traumatic past certainly could not be an easy task, and yet, here were eyewitnesses expressing their
(emotional) experiences of imprisonment in a powerful, even eloquent manner. After I had
participated in eight guided tours with six different guides during the first month of my research,
several patterns in attitudes towards specific chambers or spatial characteristics of the buildings
began to emerge. One of the most striking patterns was the position occupied by tour guides during
the part of the tour in which they showed the former interrogation rooms. Every tour guide, without
exception, positioned him- or herself either in or behind the chair where the interrogator used to sit.
Though this posture was repeated again and again during tours, I could not say whether this had a
symbolic or a practical reason. This also applied to my observance that several tour guides did not
enter the cells, either in the cellar prison or the new building. Did they not enter these cells because
it would be too crowded with a group of 15 or 20 people? But if only for practical reasons, then why
did other guides seemed to have no such objection to enter cells? Having participated in eight guided
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tours before my first interview was scheduled allowed me to observe if certain patterns emerged
and, if so, to raise such patterns during the successive interviews with these eyewitnesses. Until then
I could only guess at the possibility of emotional and/or traumatic causes of these physical attitudes
towards specific rooms. Once I started with the successive interviews my guesses soon changed into
substantial data.
My first interview was with Matthias Melster, a tall man in his mid-forties who had a sort of sturdy
look caused by his dark hair, heavy stubble, wearing a leather jacket and smoking cigarettes, yet
whose eyes often expressed a sadness that softened his initial appearance. He participated in the
GDR opposition and was arrested for trying to escape the GDR in 1987. Having been imprisoned for
five months in Hohenschönhausen and another five months in Karl-Marx-Stadt, he now – at the time
of my research – works as a tour guide. He is also a photographer who captured and processed the
emotional consequences of his imprisonment in a book filled with his own photographic images and
texts complemented by images and text of his photography tutor and friend Olivar. When I ask him
during our interview how he experienced his first visit to the Gedenkstätte in 1996, he immediately
replies: “Naja, das war schon belastend weil ich, als ich inhaftiert war, nicht wusste wo ich war, und
dass die Türen offen sind und dass es kein Gefängnis mehr ist, das hat alles ganz gut getan… um das
von außen zu sehen und heraus zu gehen, aber das kam natürlich wieder hoch in den Erinnerungen
und… ich hatte Angst, und das war schon sehr belastend”. As I inquire about his book he explains to
me why shooting images of the former prison buildings and its various chambers has been so
important to him: “Das zu fotografieren weil ich jetzt alle Möglichkeiten hatte dies dar zu stellen und
ich hatte eine Art die Macht wieder zu bekommen”. When emphasizing the importance of this
process Matthias uses the word ‘Verarbeitung’, which means ‘dealing with’, or ‘processing’. When
translated ‘Verarbeitung’ is synonymous to the word ‘treating’, thus encompassing the process of
working through the past as relieving or healing the wounds of a painful past. Matthias points out
that the process of shooting images, which not only depicted the rooms but also told a story, took
him several years and only later, when working together with Olivar, the idea rose to work together
on his story. The way in which he expresses their different approaches towards processing memories,
resulting in this book, is particularly interesting: “Und er [Olivar] hat seine Erinnerung ganz anders
verarbeitet, hat alte Fotos gekauft, und diese quasi toten Erinnerungen hat er gekauft und hat er ganz
verschnippelt in schmale Streifen und dann thematisch sortiert. Und er hat so von toten Erinnerungen
neue Geschichten gemacht […] und da haben wir festgestellt dass seine kaputten Fotos und meine
Fotos mit dieser kaputtmachenden Geschichte, das passt eher sehr gut zusammen”. Much further in
the interview Matthias elaborates on the psychological damage of his imprisonment – such as lack of
trust, sleeping problems and difficulty concentrating – and refers to his book as part of the last phase
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of his psychological therapy. When I ask him whether his memories came up when inside the former
prison, he replies: “Ja, in dem Gefängnis dann schon, weil ich stehe drin in den Räumen die ich kenne,
dann habe ich ganz häufig Erinnerungen, in diesem Büro und dieser Frischluftzelle, die Gitter, dann
kommen immer wieder Erinnerungen hoch”. Yet, when I ask him if he shares these memories during
his tours he responds: “Nein, das ist nur in meinem Kopf”. Although I am aware of the psychological
stress these questions could entail, I decide to inquire a bit further and ask how his current presence
as a tour guide at the Gedenkstätte is different to his past presence as a prisoner. His answer
surprises me: “Naja, das sind so Sachen die sind so verbunden… So eine Zelle, die Tür womit
bestimmte Erinnerungen verbunden sind, die ziehen das dann wieder auf”. I feel I am on the right
track and refer to his guided tour and my observation that he did not enter the cells and positioned
himself behind the interrogator’s seat during his guided tour; Matthias responds: “Ja, ich gehe
bewusst nicht in die Zelle, ganz selten, aber wirklich nur wenn so viel los ist, wenn viele Gruppen da
sind und ich, ich habe nur kleine Gruppen, höchstens zwölf, dreizehn Personen, dann gehe ich nur in
die Zelle um einfach Ruhe zu haben, weil viele Kollegen machen Lärm. Aber eigentlich versuche ich
das zu vermeiden weil ich Angst habe. Und im Vernehmer-Büro gehe ich schon bewusst an die Stelle
wo die Offiziere damals saßen, weil das so die Machtposition ist, die nehme ich jetzt ein. Ich setze
mich nie auf diesen Stuhl, ich habe gehört das machen ja Kollegen, die sitzen dann richtig da wo die
Offiziere saßen, aber das ist mir zu viel […] Aber ich habe auch diese Angst vor diesem Raum, darum
gehe ich nicht in so eine Zelle, da ist so…irgendwo hast du Angst dass die Tür zugeht oder so was”. For
the same reason, Wolfgang Warnke explains he has to stand near the door of an U-boat cell when
guiding groups inside: “Wenn ich wo anders stehe, dann ist es wie ich als Gefangener zur Tür gucke,
dann bekomme ich Angst und fang an zu zittern. Wenn ich bei der Tür stehe dann gucke ich wie ein
Wärter rein in den Raum, dann habe ich ein ganz anderes Empfinden”. These replies indicate that
taking a particular position in a room is in fact a way to confront and take control over the past.
These are not just a few exceptional cases. When I ask Edda Schönherz about whether her position in
the interrogation room involves a conscious choice, she replies: “Ja natürlich, das ist doch ein gutes
Gefühl dass ich da mal sitzen kann. Da saß mein Feind, den Platz habe ich jetzt eingenommen. Auf
diesem Platz mach ich kein Unheil wie der damals machte”. The powerful effect of this position goes
even further in Wolfgang Warnke’s case, who underscores the necessity of taking this seat: “Ich muss
auf dem Stuhl der Vernehmer sitzen, nicht auf den Hocker oder am Tisch. Ich sitze jetzt auf dem Stuhl
wo erst der Tyrann saß […] Ich sitze diesen anderen Personen gegenüber, also ich beherrsch diese
Personen. Ich sitze mit meinen Rücken zum Fenster im Schatten, die anderen Personen sitzen
angeleuchtet im Licht vom Fenster”. Yet such appropriation of power as expressed by Matthias, Edda
and Wolfgang is not necessarily shared by every eyewitness. Michael Bradler for example describes
his position in that particular room as generally strategic: “Es ist nicht immer so bewusst. Für mich ist
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es einfach ein strategischer Punkt, man steht mit dem Rücken zum Fenster, die Gruppe steht herum.
Von der Akustik hier, man kann die ganze Gruppe sehen. Also nicht mit demonstrativer
Machtzueignung. Manche machen das, aber ich nicht”. Though his response does not fully challenge
the relationship between this position and the regaining of power, he seems to dissociate himself
from the way in which others achieve this. His reply hints at an incident during his guided tour in
which our group was seated in one of the interrogation rooms. While Michael is talking in a detached
rational way about the interrogation process, a loud yelling voice from one of the adjoining rooms
interrupts his explanation several times, causing a few giggles in our group of schoolchildren and a
somewhat chuckling response from Michael himself on the narrative methods of other tour guides.
Though a minor incident, it shows that tour guides do not necessarily have the same ideas about how
to narrate and in some cases even ‘re-enact’ scenes.
Both my observations during the guided tours and the related comments of eyewitnesses expressing
that taking a particular position in a room is (often) a way to confront and take control over the past,
confirm Till’s theory that place making processes can function as a means of confronting inherited
legacies of national violence that haunt and influence people’s everyday lives (2005: 12). Yet
Matthias’s responses also show that the surfacing of memories in and through spatial particulars is
accompanied by distressing emotions that are kept carefully hidden from the public. His experiences
are not isolated; other eyewitnesses also addressed the way in which the former prison buildings and
particular rooms affect them and how some experiences are considered ineffable.
4.5 Ein Andere Welt: The Unspeakable Past
Edda Schönherz, a small, firm woman in her mid-sixties with medium length blond hair and a
persistent gaze, became widely known in the GDR as a journalist and presenter with the GDR
television in the late sixties and early seventies. Having been imprisoned in Hohenschönhausen and
sentenced to three years of penal servitude in Hoheneck, the notorious women’s penitentiary,
because she wanted to leave the GDR, Edda has worked at the Gedenkstätte since late 2003. When
talking about her work as a tour guide and how she experienced her first visit of the Gedenkstätte
she says: “Und ich habe das erst angesehen, musste aber bald wieder raus. Und es war sehr
bedruckend, die erste Begegnung hier mit diesem Ort”. A similar account is given by Wolfgang
Warnke, a tall, broad man with wavy white hair and a deep voice, a West-German citizen who had
been imprisoned in Sofia because of assisting two East-German men in a flight attempt, but was also
transported to Hohenschönhausen for four weeks of interrogation. His first visit to the Gedenkstätte
was frightening: “In 1999 war ich bei einer Führung dabei und da habe ich erkannt dass ich hier
inhaftiert war. Der Referent hat es gemerkt weil ich mich nicht in die Zellen traute. […] Das war sehr
beängstigend. Ich war erst mal enttäuscht, es fing an im U-Boot, das war aber nicht die Haftanstalt
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die ich gesucht habe. Als ich dann in der Garagenschleuse stand, da wollte ich raus, ich bekam Panik”.
However, it is not just the sight of the former prison buildings which are mentioned by former
prisoners as triggers of their memories and fears. Thomas Raufeisen, a strong looking man in his late
forties, was lured to East-Berlin in 1979 by his father under false pretenses – his father turned out to
be a Stasi spy – and was arrested in 1981 after several exit requests, to be imprisoned for the next
three years. Describing his first encounter with the former prison adds a new dimension to the way
in which memories surface: “Ich war mit einer Gruppe, die Türen standen offen, alles war stillgelegt.
Das war ein anderes Erleben. Ich musste aber schlucken wegen der Gerüche, die habe ich gleich
erkannt. Dieser DDR Geruch. Es hat mich erinnert an die Erlebnisse da, auch an die DDR. Es hat diese
Erinnerungen verstärkt, es war ein Auslöser. Diesen Geruch gab es überall in den öffentlichen
Gebäuden der DDR”. Thomas’ remark in our interview reminds me of comments he, Cliewe Juritza,
and Horst Jänichen had made during their guided tours when entering the interrogation wing. All
three referred to the typical somewhat musty scent one met once entering this wing and related it
immediately to the GDR. Or, as Horst Jänichen expressed it: “So hatte es früher gerochen von
Friedrichstrasse bis Wladiwostok”. When I ask Thomas next if there are any other physical aspects
that evoke memories, his response confirms my idea that the guided tours could also be a way to
keep the past at a bearable distance: “Nicht wirklich, die Nase kann man nicht abschalten. Ohren
kann man zumachen, Augen auch. Vielleicht das Knallen von den Türen. Das ist eine Macke die ich
mitbekommen habe, ich mache Türen jetzt leise zu”. Michael Bradler says something quite similar
when asked the same question: “Also nur kleine Details, bei einer Gruppe die fragt manchmal. Wenn
man die Akte liest dass dann wieder Details kommen. Wenn ich meine Führungen mache da kann ich
abschalten”. Such comments not only reveal that memories surface through sensory stimuli, but also
that such stimuli are avoided, when possible, or repressed through the performance of guided tours.
One of the reasons the guided tours provide this ‘way out’ is the indicated difference between the
experience of the former prison buildings as a tour guide or alone and, thus, outside this role.
Cliewe Juritza, a man, mid-forties, expressive in words and gestures, who had been imprisoned for
ten months for an escape attempt before he was redeemed by the West, has a sense of uneasiness
about him when he is overwhelmed by emotions; noticeable in the barely hidden irritation about the
ignorance of the school class he is guiding, or in his anger and disbelief that resurface when he tells
the group about his encounter with a man on the street who, after a heated discussion about the
Berlin Wall and Cliewe’s attempt to escape the GDR, furiously yells at him “dich hat man vergessen zu
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Photos: (top) Tour guide/eyewitness in interrogator’s chair, 01/11/2010; (bottom left) Open doors in interrogation wing,
30/11/2010; (bottom middle) Interrogator’s room with interrogator’s chair in middle, 12/08/2010; (bottom right) Access
interrogation wing from the cellar wing, this threshold simultaneously marked the access to the ‘GDR smell’, 30/11/2010.
erschießen!” Although Cliewe was not imprisoned in HsH but in another GDR prison, he informs me
he feels uncomfortable in these buildings when alone: “In eine Gruppe ist es so, dann ist ja der
Stressfaktor da, man erzählt. Man ist unbedingt präsent, macht etwas für die Leute. Wenn ich alleine
hier durchgegangen bin war es mir unheimlich. Es war vielleicht das unbewohnt sein. Ich kann das
nicht so ganz beschreiben, aber es war eben ein Unterschied ob ich als Referent mit der Gruppe hier
durchgehe oder alleine. […]Es gibt, hier im Neubau, gibt es zwei Etagen die für Publikumsverkehr
zugänglich sind. Es gibt so noch eine dritte Etage. Die ist unheimlich. Das ist original, so ein alter Geist
der drin ist, ich kann es kaum erklären. […] Da wo Publikumsverkehr ist da ist ein anderer Geist, ich
kann es nicht erklären, das ist so wie manches Wohnheim und oben ist es unberührt, wie früher”. In
his attempt to articulate the difference, Cliewe’s account offers two important clues; being actively
engaged in his role as a tour guide ensures he is fully present in both senses of the word – time wise
(now) and place wise (being there), and the presence and traffic of audience on the first and second
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floor changes the setting, while the absence of audience and place-making processes on the third
floor somehow ensures the lingering spirit of the past. Yet, the lingering spirit of which Cliewe talks is
not bound to the third floor per se. Though Michael Bradler does not use the word ‘Geist’ (ghost) to
describe the peculiar sensation when in these buildings, he too seems to refer to a certain lingering
presence when alone: “Dieser Ort hat eine merkwürdige Ausstrahlung. Ich gehe lieber nicht alleine
durch. Man kann ja jederzeit raus. Gehen Sie mal alleine durch den Vernehmertrakt, oder alleine
durch den Zellentrakt, das ist unheimlich. Besucher suchen Kontakt, weil sie auch das Unheimliche
erfahren. Es ist schwer zu vermitteln was hier los war, die Zellen sehen normal aus, das Gebäude ist
nichts Besonderes. Das Ungewisse, man wusste nicht was passierte wenn die Tür aufging, was die mit
dir vorhatten, das ist schwierig zu vermitteln”. His interpretation is similar to Cliewe’s; except Michael
clearly reasons he is not the only one experiencing this disturbing atmosphere. The German word
“unheimlich” which both Cliewe and Michael use, means ‘a vague sense of fear’ or ‘evoking horror’,
synonymous to ‘oppressive’, ‘dark’, and ‘ghostly’. These connotations all relate to Cliewe’s remark on
the presence of “ein alter Geist”. It seems as if those experiences that are difficult if not impossible to
speak of – whether because it is too emotionally demanding and/or because some things that are
felt cannot be mediated through words – are nevertheless felt as a lingering presence, a ghost of the
past even. While endeavoring to confront and process the past by guiding tours, such hauntings
actually confront eyewitnesses with the presence of the past.
Though the guided tours in a way function to keep the past at a bearable distance, they
simultaneously generate emotional difficulty, or even suffering, and unsolicited recall. For Cliewe the
presence of an audience wards off the lingering presence of the past, but the lack of control over
recall was indisputable when listening to him and other eyewitnesses. When asking Peter Rüegg how
he experienced performing his first guided tour in 2005 he is very clear about the emotional effects
of the guided tours: “Es war damals genauso wie heute, das war immer wieder neu aufregend. Man
kann nicht nur so einfach führen wie in einem technischen Museum, man ist emotional mit dieser
Sache befasst. Die Besucher merken das häufig wenn man, wenn die Stimme anfangt zu zittern oder
so […] Da kommen immer wieder die Dinge hoch, solche Dinge die man gar nicht so sagen kann wenn
man… im Geist sieht man sich selbst hier durch die Gänge laufen in den zerrissenen Lumpen in den wir
damals gekleidet waren und man spürt die Erniedrigungen wenn man so (mit) einem Unteroffizier mit
den Händen auf den Rücken zum Vernehmungsraum musste, oder solche Dinge. Das kommt immer
wieder hoch und man überwindet das nur dadurch, man tut etwas Gutes, etwas Nützliches”. Michael
Bradler, Horst Jänichen, Edda Schönherz and Thomas Raufeisen even emphasize that it is precisely
the presence and inquiries of the audience that evokes memories: “Es ist eine anstrengende Arbeit
[…] Menschen haben Fragen, man muss reagieren. Manchmal kommen Details hoch die man
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vergraben hat” (interview T.R.). Though Edda firmly states that she keeps her emotions to herself, a
few minutes later in the interview she admits that controlling her emotions is not always that easy:
“Heute ist es, nein, heute ist es nicht mehr anstrengend in dem Sinne. Es kommt darauf an. An
manchen Tagen nimmt man ein bisschen mehr mit. Besonders wenn dann so Wehrglieder drin sind
die dann so Fragen stellen. Dann fühle ich mich unheimlich. Aber ich versuche ruhig zu bleiben und
dann erkenne ich den nicht”. Referring to apparent unwelcome company in the group she guided just
before our interview takes place Edda’s reply is especially interesting. It not only shows that guiding
tours can be emotionally demanding because of past experiences as a political prisoner, but also that
the presence and questions of people in the audience can cause suspicion and emotional stress. Her
reaction points to the motives of eyewitnesses guiding tours as a necessary response to ongoing
struggles in the Gedenkstätte’s neighborhood and German society in general; a topic that will be
discussed more thoroughly in the next chapter. When I ask Edda how she experiences telling her
personal story of imprisonment at the very place she was imprisoned, she first declares: “Meine
Geschichte, das ist meine Erinnerung. Ich erzähle nur was ich erlebt habe”. Yet, when I inquire a bit
further, asking if her memories are stronger in the former prison buildings, she responds: “In diesen
Räumen? Ja natürlich, hier sind sie mitten drin. Hier ist die authentische Umgebung. Die Gerüche, das
Aura von Menschen, das geht alles ins Unterbewusstsein. Jetzt werde ich damit konfrontiert, das ist
nicht gut. Man muss auch andere Themen behandeln, sonst kommt man in ein Rad, wie ein Hamster.
Her words express the paradox between the tours as an opportunity of confronting and processing
the past and the danger of becoming trapped inside it. Still, the emotional impact of visitor’s
questions reviving eyewitnesses’ memories is not necessarily experienced in the same way by all
eyewitnesses. Though emotionally demanding, Horst Jänichen emphasizes that the recurrence of
memories through questions actually helps him to process the past: “Also die ersten Führungen
waren anstrengend. Es wird immer mehr Routine. Mann erzählt immer das Gleiche, man erzählt nur
neue Dinge wenn Fragen kommen. Dann kommen Dinge ins Gedächtnis. Für mich ist es schon eine
gewisse Aufarbeitung, weil durch Fragen immer neue Dinge ins Gedächtnis kommen”.
This remark is particularly interesting as Horst Jänichen identifies that guided tours function by way
of a certain tour repertoire. Though a tour repertoire is not fixed and can be dependent on what
group one guides – Cliewe Juritza and Gisela Quasdorf said they choose to tell less to school classes
as they feel it is such a different and incomprehensible world to them – Horst Jänichen’s remark can
be supported by an observation I made during participation in the guided tours. Of the fourteen
guided tours, I participated twice in guided tours with the same eyewitnesses (see page 30). In these
two particular tours I noticed that both eyewitnesses literally used the same narrative, even the
same words during these guided tours as in their previous tours I had participated in. In the
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preceding paragraphs it has become clear that a tour repertoire can function as a way to keep the
past at a bearable distance, though such a repertoire cannot prevent recall or experiencing the
presence of the past; on the contrary, the eyewitnesses comments substantiate that recall is often an
uncontrollable process and sometimes even beyond words. Or, as Cliewe acknowledges, while tears
roll down his face when he speaks about his visit to the place where he had been imprisoned: “Es ist
ein andere Welt… es ist auch nur ganz selten das diese alte Welt so präsent ist das ich kaum weiter
erzählen kann, das ist nur mit ein paar Sachen so”.
4.6 Conclusion: Undoing the Past, Arranging the Present
I have shown that the ‘Operative Psychologie’ used by the Stasi was not only apparent in, for
example, interrogation methods, but also visible in the architectural features and inner spatial
characteristics of the prison buildings. These spatial characteristics now function as a sort of spatial
guidebook for the tour guides through which the past is narrated. Whether the past is confronted
through narrative and use of spatial particulars, kept at a distance by guiding tours, or uncontrollably
emerges through scent, the banging of doors, audience questions, or the lingering spirit on the third
floor, the past is confronted and shared, even though it may be emotionally demanding, painful or
traumatic. Then why is it that these former prisoners now guide tours at the very place where most
of them were imprisoned? Are they predestined to this work, as Edda Schönherz expressed during
her guided tour? And if so, what are the causes of such a vocation?
Though tour repertoires serve to unlock the past and simultaneously control and keep it at a
bearable distance, they have another function that has not yet been discussed. Though part of it, the
necessity of the guided tours is not merely revealing the past, but is inextricably linked to the context
in which they occur. Being a key holder in the Gedenkstätte not only represents an individual
regaining control over a personal past, it is an attempt to unravel the past where others try to
invalidate it. ‘Undoing’ can be interpreted both ways. The guided tours at the Gedenkstätte as part of
the contemporary German struggle over places and their (previous) uses and meanings will be
discussed in the next ethnographic chapter.
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BLOGPOST FRAGMENT: STALINS BART IST AB.23
During the tours at the Gedenkstätte, guides regularly refer to Erika Riemann’s story. In 1945, as a
14-year old girl, she was sentenced to years of imprisonment for ‘anti-Soviet activities’. She had
adorned a propaganda poster of Stalin with lipstick. Stalins Bart ist ab. Not only does Erika’s story
illustrate the absurdity that accompanied the communist dictatorship, her sentence tells us
something about the strict monitoring of its boundaries. Though anthropological research often
offers insight into the shifting and changing of both physical and symbolic boundaries, during my own
research I realized how rigid and unyielding boundaries can be and what the consequences of such
‘hard’ boundaries are: death, imprisonment, physical and psychological torture. Totalitarian systems
can only exist when boundaries are made to appear insurmountable; when grey areas are eliminated
and a wall defines whether you live inside or outside, when rules can only be obeyed or offended,
when private is made public, when the ground on which one walks is restricted and the meaning and
intent of words and deeds are filtered to dispose of all impurities. The lipstick on Stalin’s Bart is then
no longer simply a child’s drawing but the desecration of a state symbol, a violation of a boundary.
In 1953 Stalin died. His statue at the former Stalin-Allee (now Karl-Marx-Allee) in Berlin disappeared
on the night of 13 November 1961 as a result of a late de-Stalinization process launched by the SED.
Stalin is no longer untouchable. While Erika Riemann was imprisoned for over eight years for
decorating Stalin’s propaganda poster, one of the workers removing the statue slipped a fragment of
the statue in his pocket. Stalins Bart ist ab.
Stalins Bart is exhibited in a small cabinet in Café Sybille at the Karl-Marx-Allee. Two weeks ago the
director of Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen told me that the physical remains of Stalin’s statue
have been an object of struggle between the Gedenkstätte and Café Sybille. It is now part of the
exhibition about the history of the Karl-Marx-Allee in Café Sybille and has become a relic of
communism, an (n)ostalgic object. It would gain a different meaning in the former Stasi prison. It
would be a symbolic victory to arrange this remains of Stalin’s statue next to Erika Riemann’s book
‘Stalins Bart ist ab’.
Both in Café Sybille and the Gedenkstätte the authenticity of objects and/or memories function to
validate and confirm the history connected with these sites. The ‘battle’ for Stalin’s Bart symbolizes
the struggle for the ‘real’ history of the GDR. Yet, what does authenticity mean and does real history
even exist? Is the history of people who have suffered more worth or more true than the history of
others who have not suffered or suffered less?
23
http://mirinthisworld.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html (translation by author).
Photo: Stalins Bart, exhibited in Café Sybille, 03/12/2010.
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CHAPTER 5. UNDOING OSTALGIE: THE (UN)DESIRABLE PAST.
5.1 Introduction
The preceding blog post was written three weeks before I completed my fieldwork research,
although ‘completed’ seems to be the wrong expression. At that time I felt like I had just started to
unravel the structure of the collected data. Sometimes, in the collection of debris, a story, object, or
event appears, transforming the apparent disorder into a meaningful whole. Some eyewitnesses
referred to this as “Schlüsselerlebnis”, a moment or event that made them realize something
important. Stalin’s Bart represents such a “Schlüsselerlebnis” in my own research. Until I spoke to the
director of the Gedenkstätte, who told me that the remains of the statue had been an object of
struggle between Café Sybille and the Gedenkstätte, I had no idea that these two places, in which I
conducted research separately, were so directly connected to each other through the remains of
Stalin’s statue. The blog post already offers some insight in the processes of remembering and
forgetting as part of the contest for validation of the (un)desirable past.
This contest takes place through spatial practices and this chapter focuses on the authentic body of
eyewitnesses to uncover and authorize history by way of guiding tours through a place of former
oppression and imprisonment. Their present ‘inhabitance’ of the place as a tour guide is not only a
coping strategy or the regaining of power over their oppressed pasts. As the previous chapter
showed, many of them expressed that although being a tour guide at this place of terror might have
been a coping strategy at first, to process their past, they acknowledge that their guiding work is still,
or maybe again, emotionally demanding. Nevertheless they continue their guiding work.24 To
understand their motives it is important to take a closer look at the guided tours as a response to and
part of contemporary struggles over the uses and interpretations of past and places in German
society. The following sub-question functioned as a directive: How do former prisoners, who work at
Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen, relate GDR history to their past experiences and sufferings and to
present processes of belonging?
5.2 Intermingling and Conflicting Pasts
Though the history of the former prison site as a Soviet Special Camp (No. 3) as a consequence of
WW 2 is included in both the tour curriculum and the introductory movie ‘Zentrale des Terrors’25,
which is usually shown prior to the German guided tours, it is not central to the tours. It is however
worthwhile to take a closer look at some particulars regarding the site’s history as a Soviet Special
Camp as elaborated upon by two of the older eyewitnesses. The first imprisonment of one of them,
24
Though I know one eyewitness has ended his guiding work last year because it was emotionally too demanding.
This movie was made by Helmuth Frauendorfer and Hubertus Knabe for the specific purpose of the Gedenkstätte.
Hubertus Knabe is a German historian, human rights activist and since 2001 scientific director of Gedenkstätte HsH.
25
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Horst Jänichen, was directly related to his participation in the “Volkssturm”, the recruitment of old
men and young boys by the Nazi party to protect the population against the Soviets during the last
months of the war. The accusation causing his 2.5 year imprisonment as a 15-year old boy in 1946
was the “Werwolfverdächtnis”, a term which referred to people who fought the occupation forces in
Germany. “Ich war aber kein Werwolf”, says Horst Jänichen during our interview, “Ich war ja in der
Hitler-Jugend. Da war ich Führer bei der Kinderabteilung, bei den Vierzehnjährigen. Goebbels hat
damals gemeint die Werwölfe wurden aus der Hitler-Jugend organisiert. Die Russen haben dann
junge Leute inhaftiert, ich gehörte auch dazu”. His case is exemplary of the many arbitrary and
unfounded imprisonments common after WW 2 when Russians ‘restored’ order and hunted for
Nazi’s and people resisting the occupation. The de-Nazification process meant that many people
were imprisoned under suspicion of either being a Nazi or having worked together with the Nazi’s.
Though those imprisoned by the Soviets were argued to have actively supported the Nazi regime,
Morré (1997) argues that for one in three prisoners this reason could not be proven (Ibid: 18). This is
also reflected upon in several tours, for example when stories are told about such unjustified
imprisonments (H.J. 2010; G.Q. 2010). Not only did the Soviets literally re-use former concentration
camps (Buchenwald became Special Camp No. 2, Sachsenhausen became Special Camp No. 7), their
purpose – de-Nazification – was questionable, as were their methods. Peter Rüegg comments
directly on the re-use of these camps in his guided tour: “Konzentrationslager der Nazi’s, ganz
schlimme Konzentrationslager. Die Sowjets haben nahtlos die Zellen, die Küchen, die Baracken, alles
weiter genutzt, ihrerseits jetzt ihre Gefangenen da unter gebracht. Ob das politisch sehr klug war sei
dahingestellt; wenn jemand von Ihnen sagt ‚Mein Vater oder mein Grossvater war
Buchenwaldhäftling‘ muss dann sich die Frage gefallen lassen, vor dem Krieg oder nach dem Krieg? ”.
The unjustified imprisonments and the preceding comment poignantly show that terror did not end
with the war. Special Camp No. 3, before it became a Stasi prison, imprisoned people under Nazisuspicion and functioned mainly as a transit camp. According to Soviet statistics, Camphausen26
writes, 886 people were officially registered dead. However, based on eyewitness accounts, at least
3000 died during their imprisonment in Special Camp No. 3 (in Morré 1997: 88). Though it is made
clear in several guided tours that people died due to primitive conditions – malnutrition, disease, and
cold – the number, circumstances, and disrespect of the Russians disposing of the bodies in nearby
bomb craters, causing residents to complain about the smell of ill buried corpses, is shocking.
On the 24th of October 2010 I attend the yearly commemoration, organized by the Gedenkstätte, of
the victims of Special Camp No. 3. at the Hohenschönhausen municipal cemetery located at the
26
Gabriele Camphausen is a German historian who was the managing director of ‘Topographie des Terrors’, chairman of
the Association ‘Berliner Mauer - Gedenkstätte und Dokumentationszentrum e.V.’ and former director of Gedenkstätte
Hohenschönhausen.
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corner of the Gärtnerstraße. The ‘Denksteinfeld’ is an open field featured by a memorial stone and
scattered natural stones symbolizing the mostly anonymous dead of the Soviet prison. Visitors are
invited to bring their own stones and add them to the stone field as a sign of remembrance.
Photo: Denksteinfeld at the memorial for Special Camp No.3 in the municipal cemetery HsH, 24/10/2010.
After the ceremony, coffee and lunch is provided for both organizers and relatives in a community
room in a nearby nursing home, Helmut and I join in. For a while I observe and listen to several
conversations around me, a bit concerned about disturbing people with my probing questions after
such an emotional gathering. It is a fine balance between respecting people’s grief by keeping your
distance and showing a sincere interest in their stories, memories and experiences of such a
commemoration. Finally I introduce myself to an old, fragile looking lady, Mrs. Ziedler, who is
accompanied by a tall middle-aged woman. They appear to be mother and daughter and are here to
remember their husband and father who was imprisoned by the Russians in 1946 and then
disappeared. Twenty-five years later they received a letter from the Red Cross in which they were
informed he had died in Russia four months after his imprisonment. Mrs. Ziedler tells me with tears
in her eyes: “Er ist ja tot, aber ich habe 25 Jahre ganz konsequent darauf gewartet das er wieder
kommt”. During the interview with mother and daughter more than two weeks later, taking place in
the elderly home where Mrs. Ziedler just moved to, we talk about his disappearance, the bombing of
Dresden, life in and their departure from the GDR in 1958. They show me old pictures of Mrs.
Ziedler’s wedding day, their old home and the birth of the daughter. The importance of the memorial
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for the victims of Special Camp No. 3 is evident when Mrs. Ziedler explains: “Das ist die einzige
Möglichkeit die ich noch habe irgendwie direkt an meinen Mann zu denken”. The extent of their grief
becomes even clearer when her daughter expresses their difficulty with Germany’s focus on
remembering the victims of WW 2: “Für die Juden wird so viel getan, da gibt es immer so wieder ein
neues Denkmal […] Und für uns? Und da gibt es auch immer so Entschädigung und alles, wir haben
nie eine Entschädigung für irgendwas bekommen! Mein Vater ist auch umgebracht worden von
anderen. […] Wir haben Häuser verloren in Ost-Berlin die nicht von Juden gekauft waren die dann
auch zum Wohl des Volkes weg waren, die Fabrik ist weg, alles ist weg und wenn’s einen Jüdischen
Vorbesitzer gab dann haben die Erben jetzt alles, und wir gar nichts. Wir mussten einfach alles wieder
abgeben”. Their grief and critique is understandable and should not so much be interpreted as
opposed to remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust, but as an expression of the difficulties in
German society in remembering the past. As Peter Rüegg’s comment so aptly showed, there is not
just one past to remember, but two pasts. Though the postwar GDR past cannot be dissociated from
the preceding war past – the ending of WW 2 not only resulted in de-Nazification practices such as
imprisonments and deaths, but lead to partition and highly protected, unyielding boundaries of
which the Berlin Wall was the most visible – the extent, visibility, and manner in which these pasts
are remembered can be experienced as conflicting.
This also surfaces, though in an entire different way, in my interview with Georg, an 84 year old man
whom I meet in Café Sybille on the 19th of August 2010 where he is drinking coffee with two old
friends. When I boldly introduce myself as a student researching local history of people in the GDR
and admit I overheard them talking about the GDR, his female friend heartily responds that such
research is valuable as it does not often occur: “nothing like that is ever in the media or newspapers,
but these are the real stories”. Not in need of encouragement she starts to reminisce about the war
and the fear of the bombing as an eight year old girl and calls it “the premise of her experiences in the
GDR”. The founding reason of the GDR was “kein Krieg mehr” she argues, and continues that life in
the GDR was not about money, possessions, or elite: “Everyone lived together in a large building,
professors, housewives, workers, all mixed together”. As if defending herself, she immediately
emphasizes her comments are not based on “Ostalgie”. Something similar happens when Georg’s
friends leave and we continue our conversation in which he underscores that “the war did not end,
they just stopped shooting. It was a war of the capitalist against the communist system”. When I ask
him if he regarded himself a communist he answers it was not that simple, it was a choice between
egoism and the common good in which most people chose for themselves. He adds he joined the
SED in 1961 because he wanted peace and labor, declaring “Die DDR hat keinen Krieg geführt, die
BRD hat Krieg geführt”. Georg starts criticizing my questioning when I, again, ask him if he had had
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any negative experiences in the GDR, and accuses me of only wanting to hear the negative side. His
reaction puts me off guard and I realize he feels cornered. I explain to him both positive and negative
sides are important to explore. When the conversation turns to people who attempted to leave the
GDR, he acknowledges it was not right that people got shot when they tried to escape, yet remarks
those people of course knew the risk of getting shot. I can barely hide my disagreement and though
he admits that an “Ausweis” was difficult if not impossible to obtain, he persists: “But why would you
want to leave the GDR? You would be a traitor to the German state”.
Though in different ways, all of the above-described data from interviews and observations illustrate
the intermingling of and conflicting ideas and experiences about the past and its commemoration.
While Georg’s remarks shocked me a great deal more than the reflection of his female friend, they
both indicate uneasiness or even disagreement with respect to a contemporary public opinion they
feel reproaches their past life. Yet acknowledging the GDR past as not all bad is considered “Ostalgie”
by several eyewitnesses in the Gedenkstätte who feel their past as prisoners of the GDR is disowned
by claims such as Georg’s and his friend. Presenting some of the ongoing struggles in the
Gedenkstätte’s neighborhood and larger German society will illustrate how eyewitnesses’ motives
are shaped by varying degrees of denial and recognition of their pasts.
5.3 Wo die Hohen schön Hausen; Neighborhood Struggles and more
In every guided tour, eyewitnesses tell their audience that the former Stasi prison in
Hohenschönhausen was located in the prohibited district of the Staatssicherheitsdienst and
surrounded by houses where Stasi employees lived. “Because of this”, Hartmut Richter explains
during his guided tour, the neighborhood became known as “Hohenschönhausen ist wo die Hohen
schön Hausen”. The lasting effects of this given are already referred to in one of the first tours by
Cliewe Juritza, who tells the school class he is guiding: “Vor 21 Jahren haben hier 2500 Menschen
gearbeitet auf dem ganzen Gelände der Staatssicherheit. Und die sind nachher nicht verschwunden,
die leben noch teilweise hier in der Umgebung. Siegfried Rataizick war 27 Jahre der Rektor dieses
Gefängnisses, er wohnt zwei Querstraßen weiter. Horst Böttger, der Psychiater, er hat seine Praxis
hier 500 Meter entfernt. Können Sie sich behandeln lassen…” He continues his account with the
earlier mentioned incident in which an older man on the street, with whom he had a heated
discussion about the GDR, shouts at him that ‘they had forgotten to shoot him’. Cliewe concludes:
“Sie sehen, eine abgeschlossene Epoche sieht anders aus”. During our interview two weeks later I
raise this topic of former Stasi employees still living in the neighborhood of the Gedenkstätte and
find out that this is information not necessarily known in advance to former prisoners who start
working at the Gedenkstätte, but rather something they are confronted with either through personal
experience or through visitor’s reports: “Ich hätte das damals nicht so gesehen, nie daran gedacht
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dass es so viele Stasileute noch gibt. Als ich ja angefangen habe dann habe ich manchmal dahinten in
der Gegend von Lidl mich hingesetzt und etwas gelesen, gelernt, und dann hab ich ganz richtig
realisiert wie viele Stasileute hier eigentlich noch wohnen. Das ist mir auch später aufgefallen, auch
durch die Gespräche mit Besuchern. Hier war so ein richtiger Berliner der erzählte es so: naja ich hab
da denn auch auf der Straße habe ich sie gefragt ‚sagen Sie mal, wie komme ich hier denn zu dem
alten Stasiknast?‘ ‚Moment mal meinen Sie die ehemalige Untersuchungshaftanstalt des
Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit? Jaja, so ein Museum gibt’s hier wohl aber wo der Eingang ist das
kann ich Ihnen nicht sagen, das weiß ich nicht‘”. Cliewe adds: Den Eingang sieht man ja von da
hinten! In the course of my research I regularly hear this particular incident repeated, not just by the
tour guides but also from visitors who have been sent the wrong way while standing in the very
street the Gedenkstätte is located. Cliewe is not the only one plagued by either former Stasi officers
who still live there or other painful encounters. Wolfgang Warnke also informs his audience that the
former rector of the prison lives nearby and adds that he regularly scolds teachers and their school
classes visiting the Gedenkstätte. Gisela Quasdorf gives a similar account to the groups she guides:
“Da wohnten natürlich die Leute von der Stasi die natürlich hier gearbeitet hatten rundum. Heute
noch, wir merken es manchmal dass wir noch manchmal attackiert werden oder beschimpft, also
auch sogar die Besucher wurden manchmal beschimpft: ‚gehen Sie nicht dahin, da wird nur gelogen‘.
Also das erleben wir schon häufig. Aber man muss natürlich nicht unterstellen alle die da wohnen,
aber wir spüren es manchmal an dem Ärgernis so zu sagen”. After having heard several eyewitness
accounts on such incidents, Thomas Raufeisen’s explanation to his tour audience about living in
another part of the city makes sense: “Das muss ich echt nicht haben, hier sind ganz viele Stasi-leute
die naja, die irgendwie ungestraft mich immer noch als Verbrecher behandeln können und dass muss
ich jetzt nicht haben solche… ich wohn ja da wo ich mich wohl fühl, wo es meiner Sozialisation
entspricht, West-Berlin”. A similar reasoning is used by Matthias Melster when I inquire during our
interview if it is important to him to live in the former western part of Berlin: “Ja, ein bisschen. Ich
sehe das nicht ganz so verbissen, also Prenzlauerberg oder Mitte oder Friedrichshain kann ich
genauso wohnen, aber das sind ja Bezirke die haben nichts mehr von Osten. Aber Hohenschönhausen
da wo das Gefängnis steht, oder Lichtenberg sind so Bezirke da würde ich nicht wohnen, weil da noch
ziemlich viele wohnen die der DDR nachtrauern, da würde ich mich nicht wohl fühlen. Das ist mir
noch… hat mir noch zu viel einen Ost Traum aus DDR-Zeiten”. Though providing reason enough to not
live in the neighborhood of the Gedenkstätte, these anything but isolated confrontations are either
an immediate cause of former prisoners’ motives to perform their guiding work, or nourish their
perseverance to continue their work. A major objective of former prisoners is to make clear to
people that the after effects of this history, their past, are not merely noticeable in the interrupted,
manipulated and sometimes broken lives of people, but also in everyday practices such as
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confrontations in the immediate vicinity of the Gedenkstätte. It is important to further appreciate
the nuances in their different motivations and gain more understanding of their attitudes towards
‘Ostalgie’.
5.4 Undoing Ostalgie
A recurring argument during the guided tours is the perceived injustice that many people who held
an important position during the GDR, either with the Stasi or the SED, today have their own
companies, law firms, psychology practices, shopping centers, are board members, mayors or even
occupy high governmental positions: “Siehe bei Matthias Platzeck in Potsdam-Brandenburg der mit
acht Stasi-Leuten in der Regierung sitzt! Das ist unhaltbar. Das ist nicht nur ein Schlag ins Gesicht aller
Betroffenen, sondern für das gesamte deutsche Volk”, Edda Schönherz asserts to her audience,
referring to the Brandenburger 2009 red-red coalition of SPD and Die Linke – the left parties‘ top
being interspersed with former Stasi informants. This coalition is also referred to by Gisela Quasdorf
in her guided tour: “wir sind natürlich auch nicht so begeistert davon dass heute noch in der Region
Brandenburg Leute sitzen die für die Stasi gearbeitet haben”. The underlying problem of the current
social positions those people now hold is expressed in different ways, but is always the same: no one
was held accountable for injustices committed because officially they all acted under the law of the
GDR. As the reunification treaty in 1990 contained no law to sentence people who worked for the
Stasi, only in exceptional cases could people, if known by name to have committed atrocities, be held
accountable. For crimes against the state they could not be held accountable, as by GDR law they
had done everything right. This treaty thus promoted no awareness of injustice, therefore any need
to apologize and, in view of the previously discussed neighborhood tensions, people still get away
with denying or trivializing Stasi practices. It is precisely this unawareness of injustice due to not
being held accountable that is perceived as problematic by the tour guides. Though it might have
become politically incorrect to deny or trivialize these practices, there are no official consequences.
This is a thorn in the side of the former inmates, who sometimes fiercely raise these issues during
their guided tours. Such as, for example, Hartmut Richter, who starts his tour by explaining the value
of this site, “Es ist wichtig, dieser Ort ist wichtig. Es wird schon immer mehr verklärt. Leute die was zu
verbergen haben sind an dieser Verklärungen immer besonders interessiert”, and parts with his
audience with the following words, “Wie viele hat man zur Verantwortung gezogen? Nicht einen! Die
haben ja alle nach dem Gesetz der DDR gehandelt. Die sind Anwälte großenteils. Die Schließer
schließen heute immer noch”. His statement emphasizes the necessity of guided tours at the
Gedenkstätte. This necessity of the guided tours as an answer to such processes is confirmed by all
other eyewitnesses, though each has one’s own specific motive. Horst Jänichen, one of the oldest
eyewitnesses, emphasizes during our interview that this history must not be forgotten to make sure
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it will not happen again: “Ich habe zehn Jahre hinter Gittern gesessen, nur weil ich den Mund
aufgemacht habe. Wenn ich jetzt den Mund nicht aufmache dann war das damals vertane Zeit”.
Matthias Melster expresses a similar motive: “Der Hintergrund ist natürlich dass diese Geschichten
eben nicht vergessen werden dürfen, um Menschen zu zeigen wie wichtig Demokratie und Freiheit
ist”. Though Edda Schönherz distinguishes in our interview between the deliberate denying and lying
about the past by, for example, former Stasi employees, and the wistful forgetfulness which
characterizes people who argue life in the GDR was better because everyone had a job and good
social insurance, she stresses the political danger of forgetfulness, whether such forgetfulness is
intentional or unintentional. Her critique however, is not directed at every former citizen of the GDR:
“Ich nehme es auch nicht jedem übel, weil nicht jeder die Kraft und den Mut hat sich gegen dieses
Regime aufzustellen. Ich verurteile nicht die Menschen der DDR, sondern das Regime. Nur die
Menschen die es ganz bewusst unterstützten”. This nuance is also applied by Horst Jänichen, who
explains during our interview: “Alle hatten Angst, es könnte was passieren, das ist das System von
Diktatur, Leute in Angst halten. Und jeder hat seine Nische gesucht und sein Glück gemacht, wer nicht
auffiel der hat ein ganz normales Leben gelebt, wer das nicht wollte der musste die Konsequenz in
einer Diktatur davon tragen”. Eyewitnesses confronted with the counterargument that life in the
GDR was not all bad, respond and refute such arguments in varying ways. Thomas Raufeisen analyzes
the forgetfulness underlying such arguments: “Die Ostalgie finde ich furchtbar. Das Komische ist,
Menschen erinnern sich nur an die guten Seiten, auch in einer Diktatur. Man drängt es weg, die
schlechten Seiten. Viele ehemalige DDR-Bürger vermischen auch ihr persönliches Leben mit der
Staatsform. Ich kann mich nicht erinnern was gut ging in der DDR. Gutes Beispiel; Jeder hat Arbeit und
jetzt ist es wirtschaftlich schwierig. Was Leute vergessen, in der DDR gab’s Arbeitspflicht, wer nicht
gearbeitet hat kam ins Gefängnis. Das Argument finde ich so furchtbar weil alles was vermeintlich gut
war, im Hintergrund schlecht war!” Gisela Quasdorf is mild in her observations about those people
who have had a relatively normal and happy life in the GDR, yet distinguishes between
acknowledging ‘not all was bad’ and ‘it was good’: “Ich gönne es denen, diese Erinnerung. Jeder soll
auch das Recht haben zu vergessen. Jeder soll auch das Recht haben zu sagen, ‚es war ja nicht alles
schlecht‘. Man kann auch von niemandem erwarten dass man immer nur zugibt, ‚ja alles war Mist
was wir gemacht haben‘, die mussten sich arrangieren. Klar, wenn viele sagen ‚nee ich fand es schön
an der DDR‘ ich hätte Argumente um sagen zu können ‚das Unrecht das hast du gesehen‘ ”. It is
especially the blatant denial or trivialization of the state’s violations and the idealization of life in the
GDR that these eyewitnesses’ contest during their tours. According to Peter Rüegg, ‘Ostalgie’ is used
as an explanation by those who compare their contemporary reality with life in the GDR to denote
the experienced differences: “Die Älteren die haben den (Unterschied) immer noch nicht ganz
überwunden. Und die verklären dann auch die DDR so ein bisschen ‘ach ja war so ’ne Idylle‘, Ostalgie
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nicht. Ja, Ostalgie verklären sie dann. Aus dem Grunde ist auch unsere Tätigkeit hier, die wir hier in
der Gedenkstätte machen, so sehr wichtig. Und wir freuen uns eigentlich über die vielen Besucher die
wir haben weil jede Führung die wir hier machen eigentlich ein Stück von der Ostalgie abbröckelt; das
heute hier ist Realität und wir Zeitzeugen können das besonders deutlich sagen weil wir das alle erlebt
haben”. Whether the varying degrees of idealizations of life in the GDR are interpreted as harmless
or harmful forgetfulness or ‘Ostalgie’ by eyewitnesses, they are mainly problematic when people
take these experiences out of their context, without regarding the underlying dictatorial regime. The
way in which this is contested, through eyewitness tours at the Gedenkstätte, should therefore not
be merely interpreted as the processing of individual painful experiences and unlawful treatments.
With these tours eyewitnesses uncover and confront the past and emphasize their experiences are
no mere individual experiences, or exceptions to the rule, but are central in understanding GDR
history. Thus we arrive at the final paradox to be explained, how do individual experiences function
to authorize a shared understanding of GDR history?
5.5 The Paradox of Authentic Eyewitness Tours
On the one hand, each eyewitness tour is authentic in the sense that it is based on the unique
experiences of that particular former prisoner. On the other hand however, each tour is also an
expression of the tour guide curriculum; a manual outlining the main events, dates and descriptions
of various rooms and Stasi methods. The curriculum, though guides are encouraged to complement
and clarify this with their own personal experiences, is, I think, grounded in the very denial and
trivialization of Stasi practices observed in neighborhood clashes, books written by former Stasi
officers justifying their former work, the existence of an association of former Stasi employees with
their own website propagating against the practices at the Gedenkstätte27, and other confrontations
which demonstrate varying degrees of denial or forgetfulness. By means of a curriculum the
consistency of information in the various eyewitness tours at the Gedenkstätte is sought as a
response to former criticism about the credibility of varying eyewitnesses’ accounts. Where the very
authenticity of being an eyewitness authorizes former prisoners to speak about the past, to those
who do not want the past to be uncovered this authenticity as a basis for authorizing the past is
questioned because it produces unique, varying reports; such dissimilarities are then interpreted as
conflicting and therefore incorrect information. The resulting paradox is the authentic eyewitness
tour whose content however has to be compatible with the content of the other guided tours.
In chapter four we have already seen that although each eyewitness has one’s own unique story of
imprisonment and experiences of Stasi practices, their experiences show many similarities because
27
http://www.mfs-insider.de/
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they all have been imprisoned by the Stasi. Therefore, the paradox itself, the authentic story of an
eyewitness which at the same time has to follow a certain curriculum, is not easily detected in the
tours. Unless one participates in several tours, this paradox remains hidden. There is one particular
example I want to present to illustrate how information from the curriculum appeared in the guided
tours.
In all guided tours eyewitnesses share information with respect to the reconstructed water torture
cells in the cellar prison. The presence of these reconstructed torture cells is controversial because
there are few eyewitness accounts confirming the use of such torture cells; this is however explicitly
mentioned by all tour guides. Thomas Raufeisen, for instance, explains to his audience: “Beim dem
Gerät gibt es allerdings ein kleines Problem, es ist etwas umstritten ob es hier am diesem Ort
überhaupt gegeben hat. Einfach deswegen weil wir wenige Zeugen davon haben. Wir haben noch
einen zweiten Zeuge der die Existenz eines solchen Gerätes bestätigt hat, er konnte sich aber nicht
mehr genau erinnern ob er das Gerät hier gesehen hat oder vielleicht in einem anderen sowjetischen
Gefängnis. Mehr Information haben wir nicht dazu, wenn Sie jetzt denken wenn Sie das hier jetzt so
sehen, ‚anderthalb Zeugen ist ein bisschen knapp‘, das wurde hier einfach deswegen gezeigt weil
solche Geräte, solche Reste von einem solchen Gerät hat man in sowjetischen Gefängnissen
tatsächlich gefunden, so die gab’s wirklich. Aber hier vor Ort haben wir es nicht hundert Prozent
sicher geklärt”. Wolfgang Warnke even refers to a book published by Horst Schneider28, in which the
Gedenkstätte is depicted as a place where horror is fostered with the intention to pursue success,
when he accounts for the presence of these reconstructed cells: “Wir haben sie nachgebaut nicht
weil wir ein Gruselkabinett machen wollten, sondern nur weil wir auch diese sieben Jahre wo Leute in
diesen Folterzellen hier einsaßen auch drin haben wollten”. The difficulty with which the
Gedenkstätte is faced is that uncovering the past is anything but a closed chapter but requires
ongoing research. Though quite a lot is known about Stasi practices, partly through examining Stasifiles, a large part of the evidence consists of eyewitness testimonies challenged by those who do not
want the past to be uncovered. Though new research findings are shared with those who guide
tours, which are then incorporated in the tours, the applicability of such research findings is however
not always clear to eyewitnesses.
This specific problem surfaced during an internal lecture at the Gedenkstätte called “Bastille ohne
Sturm” on the 25th of November 2010. This lecture was intended to inform the tour guides about the
latest research findings relating to the prison in the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall and before
28
Das Gruselkabinett des Dr. Hubertus Knabe(lari), Horst Schneider.
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reunification, a period in which the prison was still in use, yet no longer as a secret research prison
but as a normal prison. During the course of the evening several eyewitnesses expressed their doubts
about the value and applicability of the knowledge presented. There appeared to be a gap between
the historian’s research and the knowledge that was expected by the eyewitnesses to be presented.
The following day, when I was chatting to some of the eyewitnesses who had attended the lecture,
they expressed their knowledge as ‘experienced and real’ and the historian’s knowledge as ‘research
that had nothing to do with their everyday reality’. One of them added that the research I had been
doing in the past months was experienced as a much better approach because it regarded the
histories and practices of eyewitnesses, which is the focus of the Gedenkstätte.
Though naturally I conceived this as a great compliment to my research, it is reasonable that new
research findings are shared with tour guides to keep their curriculum up to date. The gap between
different kinds of knowledge as expressed by several eyewitness tour guides, illustrates the difficulty
with which the Gedenkstätte is faced: the uncovering of the past as an ongoing process between preexisting eyewitness accounts, additional eyewitness accounts and other sources of information such
as maps, Stasi files, geographical, architectural, historical studies etc. Though this is partly solved by
creating a curriculum that ensures the compatibility of content in the guided tours, renewing
information still requires careful maneuvering, especially within a context characterized by a contest
for the validation of an (un)desirable past.
5.6 Conclusion
In this chapter I have provided insight into the intermingling and sometimes conflicting pasts which
characterize German society. This emerges in the extent and visibility of commemorating the warpast with respect to the post-war past, but also in the contest between eyewitnesses at the
Gedenkstätte who uncover the undesirable past by guiding tours and the way in which they are
confronted with varying degrees of denial, forgetfulness and idealizations of life in the GDR. Though
the very authenticity of being an eyewitness authorizes former prisoners to speak about the past, to
those who do not want the past to be uncovered this authenticity, as a basis for authorizing the past,
is questioned. The resulting paradox is the authentic eyewitness tour whose content however has to
be compatible with the content of the other guided tours. The present ‘inhabitance’ of eyewitnesses
working in the Gedenkstätte as tour guides, is thus not only a coping strategy or the regaining of
power over their oppressed pasts, but should also be seen as a fight for recognition, for belonging in
a reunited democratic Germany and the undoing of certain forms of longing for a past they consider
undesirable.
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Photo: Picture of one of the 2000 hand-painted artworks by artist Gvoon, former prisoner, in his exhibition ‘Inhaftiert’ at
the Gedenkstätte. These small hand-painted artworks represented prisoners who could symbolically be freed by visitors
when substituted by a handwritten paper the same format as the hand-painted artworks. The above artwork, nr 558,
was symbolically freed by me, 16/09/2010.
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CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSION: DISRUPTED MEMORIES, PERSISTENT PRACTICES.
6.1 Recap: Contributing to the Field of Memory Studies
In my choice to study the dynamics of physical place(s), memory and belonging among former EastBerlin citizens I hoped to reach a more thorough understanding of present processes of belonging
and rupture in a post-partition and post-totalitarian context. My initial target group consisted of
former East-Berlin citizens in the specific city district Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, a district that used to
be divided by the Berlin Wall. As addressed in chapter three, one is dependent on getting access
once in the ‘field’. My target group not so much shifted, but centered on a specific group within the
initial specification ‘former East-Berlin citizens’; former political prisoners who now work as
eyewitnesses at Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen, the former secret Stasi research prison in which
they were once imprisoned. To investigate the complicated relationship between past and present
experiences of place in relation to (national) belonging, I formulated the following research question:
How do eyewitnesses working at Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen experience and use physical
place and ontological space in creating (national) notions of belonging and citizenship?
During my fieldwork research, focused on the dynamics of commemorative and spatial practices at
the site, my assumption that belonging is often defined by some kind of affection (towards people,
places, ideas) was greatly challenged by the connection between belonging and suffering I observed
there. To understand the intermingling processes of memory, trauma, place and belonging, I decided
to focus on the various paradoxes I encountered, as they were the most telling.
In discussing the theoretical concepts structuring my research, I positioned myself in the often
confusing ‘collective memory’ debate by advocating a focus on studying commemorative practices as
Hirst and Manier (2008) and Dwyer and Alderman (2008) also recommend, rather than adhering to a
concept that has become too static, inclusive and complicated to have effective analytical power. I
chose to approach the research context from the concept of memorial landscapes which
incorporates the physical places to which memories are related, the meanings attached to these
places, as well as the bodily expressions through which the dynamic relationship between places and
their meanings are communicated. By examining the dynamics of spatial and commemorative
practices at the Gedenkstätte my research has contributed to the ongoing debate of the workings of
memory and trauma in a critical way and enriched contemporary understandings of the workings of
memory in several ways: 1) remembering is a mental act and therefore absolutely and completely
personal, as Berliner (2005) emphasizes as well; 2) though remembering is a mental act, the various
stimuli through which memories surface demonstrate that it is inextricably linked to the senses and
the experience of spatial characteristics; 3) the mental process of remembering and forgetting is very
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difficult to control, if not impossible, and should therefore not be politicized too easily. The struggle
to (in)validate the past takes place in public representations of the past, through the spoken and
unspoken, the inclination or refusal to discuss it; 4) though trauma in psychiatric discourse signifies a
long-term destructive impact on the personality, resulting in some form of mental or emotional
incapacity, the ‘unspeakable past’ which I encountered among eyewitnesses at the Gedenkstätte
should not be confused with the mental or emotional incapacity to speak. It rather emphasizes the
felt insufficiency of words in describing the weight of certain experiences, as well as it points to the
right to keep certain feelings and experiences from public view.
6.2 Merging Dynamics of Memory, Trauma and Place
In the fourth chapter I discussed the interplay between spatial and commemorative dynamics in
detail, addressing the first sub-question: ‘How are experiences and perceptions of place meaningful in
narrating the past at Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen?’
I have argued that the ‘Operative Psychologie’ used by the Stasi, emerges in, for example, accounts
of interrogation methods but is also visible in the architectural features and inner spatial
characteristics of the buildings. These spatial characteristics now function as a sort of spatial
guidebook for the tour guides through which the past is narrated. Yet these spatial characteristics
not only function as a guidebook during their tours, they also evoke (unwanted) memories that are
considered unspeakable. Though Pollack (2003) argued that restoring a traumatic environment
mitigates the consequences of trauma, and Coombes (2003) concluded that narrative and
performances at the Robben Island and District 6 Museum are attempts to embody and speak the
unspeakable by reanimating spaces, the uncontrollable emergence of memories, or ‘the ghost of the
past’, experienced by the eyewitnesses at the Gedenkstätte is often felt as adding to instead of
lessening their emotional stress or pain. On the other hand eyewitnesses consciously unlock,
confront and regain power over the past by narrating about their experiences, incorporating the use
of spatial features and deliberately positioning themselves in certain spots. These observations
confirm Till’s claims that place-making can be a means of confronting inherited legacies of national
violence that haunt people’s everyday lives (2005), but also relate to Erll’s argument that cultural
memory is a kind of ‘archive’ which has to be performed to become meaningful for the individuals
and groups who do the remembering in their respective present (2010). Eyewitnesses working at the
Gedenkstätte form, so to speak, a living archive; their knowledge is made accessible through the
performance of guided tours in which the spatial and narrative dynamics of this knowledge converge.
Paradoxically, the routes and repertoires of the guided tours also function to keep the past at a
bearable distance. Eyewitnesses literally and figuratively hold the keys to both unlock the past and
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secure it. This provides an interesting similarity to Bunten’s identification of the commodified
persona as a strategy of cultural tourism workers who ‘share culture’ to use and manage their
product: themselves (2008). Her concept of the commodified persona shares similarities with the
historical persona; eyewitnesses working at the Gedenkstätte. Bunten shows the paradox of
authenticity and cultural tourism: on the one hand consumerist culture is often held responsible for
destroying cultural authenticity and on the other hand tourism acts as a catalyst to generate
heightened awareness of preserving authenticity and tradition. Self-modification is then, she argues,
also a politically motivated expression of identity. Some might argue that identifying eyewitness
accounts of their painful pasts as a way of making means, dishonors or even pollutes the original
(authentic) motives of ‘uncovering the past’, yet what has become clear during my research is that
eyewitness tours at the Gedenkstätte can indeed be interpreted as a way to protect the past from
being ‘sold’.
6.3 Protecting the Past from being Sold
The comparison of the eyewitnesses’ historical persona with Bunten’s commodified persona can only
be fully understood when the guided tours are seen as part of the contemporary German struggle
over places and their (previous) meanings; as an attempt to unravel the past where others try to
invalidate it. This was discussed in chapter five, in which I addressed the second sub-question: How
do former prisoners, who work at Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen, relate GDR history to their past
experiences and sufferings and to present processes of belonging?
In this chapter I examined the practices of remembering and forgetting at Gedenkstätte
Hohenschönhausen in relation to other commemorative practices in Berlin. I have provided insight
into the intermingling and sometimes conflicting pasts which characterize German society. This
emerged not only in the intermingling of war-past and post-war past in some eyewitnesses’ own
lives, the post-war/partition past as a direct consequence of the war itself and the experienced
imbalance in commemorating the GDR past with respect to the war-past was also stressed during
both guided tours and interviews. These findings correspond with and complement Azaryahu’s
findings (2003), who demonstrates the difficulties of coexisting and competing pasts at memorial site
Buchenwald, where commemoration of its past as a concentration camp overshadows the
commemoration of its subsequent purpose as a Soviet Special Camp. The never to be resolved
debate about how to commemorate, the confronting and ‘working through the past’ (Aufarbeitung)
which Young (1992) suggested as the best German memorial to the Fascist era, is in a way also
pursued at the Gedenkstätte in relation to the post-war totalitarian past. Many eyewitnesses even
argued that the way in which the Fascist past is publicly confronted in German society, should also
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happen with respect to the second totalitarian period, advocating the same visibility and recognition
of victims of this regime.
Conflicts about the past do not only concern the degree and visibility of commemoration of two
different time periods. They also concern the contest between eyewitnesses at the Gedenkstätte
who try to uncover the undesirable past by guiding tours and the way in which they are confronted
with varying degrees of denial, forgetfulness and idealizations of life in the GDR. Though not so much
directed against the production and consumption of Ostprodukte – which both Veenis (1999) and
Bach (2002) argue represent something solid and stable, a strategy for (former) easterners not to be
speechless in a field of cultural production that is now (after the fall of the Wall) dominated by a
western hegemonic discourse – guided tours at the Gedenkstätte were declared by eyewitnesses as
an attempt to undo Ostalgie. Though Ostalgie was indicated in various ways by eyewitnesses, they
share the idea that when the GDR past is depicted as an idyll, when the underlying problem of the
GDR being a totalitarian state is trivialized, ignored or denied, their work is to unmask this
forgetfulness, whether this forgetfulness is intentional or unintentional. While the guided tours as
place-making processes, are part of the same power struggle in which Ostprodukte are embedded –
they both function to as a way to authorize conceptions of self, other and nation – their guiding work
is a way to protect the past from being ‘sold’ by ambiguous interpretations, trivialization, denial, or
forgetfulness.
Though the very authenticity of being an eyewitness authorizes former prisoners to speak about the
past, to those who do not want the past to be uncovered this authenticity, as a basis for authorizing
the past, is questioned. The resulting paradox is the authentic yet curriculum based eyewitness tour.
Though the curriculum ensures the consistency of information within the various eyewitness tours,
responding to former criticism about the credibility of the varying eyewitnesses’ accounts, it also
illustrates the difficulty with which the Gedenkstätte is faced: the uncovering of the past as an
ongoing process involving the interaction of different sources. This requires careful maneuvering,
especially within a context characterized by a contest for the validation of an (un)desirable past.
These observations and findings are also a direct response to Olick’s (1999) writings about collective
memory in which memory is characterized as a representation of the past that is never accurate but
instead molded according to people’s interests. While processes of authentication and authorization
are often used to show a ‘truth’ beyond the true/false discourse, stressing the politics of memory, at
the Gedenkstätte it is of utmost importance to understand the reality of former prisoners’
experiences: bringing out the truth is a necessity in a context in which their experiences are denied,
trivialized and forgotten. Though Olick (1999) emphasizes the dialogical character of language and
the way in which consensus is fostered through language, the processes through which memory, or
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rather the representations of the past, become institutionalized, are taken for granted in the concept
of collective memory. The paradox of authentic eyewitness tours provide insight into these processes
and demonstrate that though individual memory and collective representation complement each
other at the Gedenkstätte, the sought convergence can also cause friction. This, probably, illustrates
the process of uncovering of the past and narrating history in the best possible way, as unfinished
business.
This brings me to the closing argument. Till (2005) argues that the aim of the contest over place and
space is to establish a specific past and present as representative and desirable, and that feelings of
belonging are created through recollection of the past and communicated through place-making
processes. However, the place-making processes at the Gedenkstätte, embodying an undesirable
even traumatic past, deconstruct rather than reconstruct a desired mythical past. The present
‘inhabitance’ of eyewitnesses working in the Gedenkstätte as tour guides, is thus not only a coping
strategy or the regaining of power over their oppressed pasts, but should also be seen as a fight for
recognition, for belonging in a reunited democratic Germany and the undoing of certain forms of
longing for a past they consider undesirable. Their work can be seen as a tool to achieve social
justice, as Nieves (in Logan and Reeves 2009) also concludes with respect to former places of pain in
South-Africa. It is precisely this contest between eyewitnesses pursuing recognition and justice,
seeking to unlock the past, and those who counteract their quest by attempting to lock away the
past, which is captured in the main title of this thesis: (un)locked lives. A title that not only represents
this contest, but also connects it to the various nuances and ambiguities that characterize the
processes of memory, trauma and place at the Gedenkstätte: the eyewitnesses practices to unlock
the past by guiding tours yet keeping it at a bearable distance; the nevertheless uncontrollable
emergence and unfolding of memories; the eyewitnesses’ ability to enter and leave the site providing
an opportunity to enter (unlock) and leave (lock) the past; the danger and fear of becoming trapped
inside the past and, of course, it identifies the difference between their past as prisoners and their
present freedom.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.
Based on the findings of the 4.5 months anthropological fieldwork in Berlin this thesis focuses on the
relationship between physical places, memory and belonging with respect to the GDR past. The
particular objective of this thesis is to show how former political GDR prisoners who now work as
tour guides at Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen – the former Stasi prison and their former place of
imprisonment –– remember and communicate the past and thereby challenge the persisting denial
and forgetfulness of the totalitarian GDR past in contemporary German society.
The research findings show that eyewitness tours function as a way to reveal and confront the past
and at the same time keep memories of this painful past at a bearable distance. Remembering their
pasts as prisoners in a totalitarian state is inextricably linked to the former prison buildings and its
interior which sometimes evokes ‘unspeakable’ memories but also functions as a spatial guidebook
during the guided tours. Though eyewitnesses reveal, confront and process the past through guiding
tours, their work continues to be emotionally demanding and involves the danger of becoming
trapped in the past. Guiding tours should however not merely be interpreted as a coping strategy but
also as a fight for recognition in a reunited German society where their former oppressors maintain
high social positions and the GDR as a totalitarian state is trivialized, ignored or denied by various
people. Eyewitnesses unmask this forgetfulness and invalidate its associated forms of longing for a
past by guiding tours.
This research demonstrates the continuing effects of the totalitarian GDR past on contemporary
German society emerging in the intermingling processes of place, memory and belonging at
Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen. This research gives a more thorough understanding of present
processes of belonging and rupture in a post-partition and post-totalitarian context, but also calls for
further research of comparable and/or conflicting processes in Germany and other post-totalitarian
societies facing similar contemporary contests of (in)validating the past.
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APPENDIX 1: GUIDED TOUR P.R. 07-10-2010 (EYEWITNESS ‘40/’50’S).
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APPENDIX 2: GUIDED TOUR H.R. 08-10-2010 (EYEWITNESS ‘60’S).
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APPENDIX 3: GUIDED TOUR E.S. 25-08-2010 (EYEWITNESS ‘70’S).
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APPENDIX 4: GUIDED TOUR G.Q. 08-10-2010 (EYEWITNESS ‘70’S).
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APPENDIX 5: GUIDED TOUR W.W. 01-11-2010 (EYEWITNESS ‘70’S).
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APPENDIX 6: GUIDED TOUR M.M. 10-09-2010 (EYEWITNESS ‘80’S).
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APPENDIX 7: GUIDED TOUR C.J. 15-09-2010 (EYEWITNESS ‘80’S).
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APPENDIX 8: GUIDED TOUR T.R. 16-09-2010 (EYEWITNESS ‘80’S).
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APPENDIX 9: GUIDED TOUR M.B. 21-09-2010 (EYEWITNESS ‘80’S).
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Transcription

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