BERLIN-HOHENSCHÖNHAUSEN MEMORIAL

Description

Essentials about the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial in brief

The Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial is a depressing testimony to Berlin’s dark past and stands like few other places in Germany for the history of political persecution in GDR times. For 44 years, first in the former central Soviet remand prison for East Germany and then in the central remand prison of the GDR’s State Security, opposition members, escapees and opponents of the regime of all kinds were imprisoned, tortured and murdered. Thousands of politically persecuted people were deprived of their freedom and their lives at this place, including almost all known GDR oppositionists.

The exhibition of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial

On the grounds of the former Stasi prison, much of which has been preserved, the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen memorial now recalls the history of these people and their resistance to an inhumane regime. The permanent exhibition “Imprisoned in Hohenschönhausen – Testimonies of Political Persecution” uses 300 photos and nearly 500 objects, such as clothing and prisoners’ letters, to paint a picture of the prisoners’ everyday lives.

The exhibition can be visited without a guided tour. Even more moving, however, is a tour with a former prisoner, who can give an authentic impression of the prison conditions of the politically persecuted between 1946 and 1990 based on personal experiences. In a 360-degree virtual reality film, the viewer becomes a prisoner himself. The short film is based on the “interrogation protocols” of the GDR dissident and writer Jürgen Fuchs.