Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial

A visit to Hohenschönhausen Memorial, the former Stasi prison, is a chilling reminder of the fate of the thousands who fell victim to political persecution in the former East Germany.

The former Stasi prison known since 1994 as the Hohenschönhausen Memorial, and run as an independent public foundation since 2000. It is situated in the former Ministry for State Security’s “Untersuchungshaftanstalt” which used to be the main remand prison for citizens under investigation. The reality of life under the Stasi – GDR’s secret police – was brought to the world with the film and 2007 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film “The Life of Others”, by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. A visit to the former Stasi prison, located in the former East Berlin district of Lichtenberg-Hohenschönhausen is a chilling reminder of the fate of the thousands who fell victim, as prisoners of conscience, to political persecution in the former East Germany although many amongst the incarcerated had committed no crime.

During the Soviet occupation after the end of WWII German prisoners were sent to the Gulag from here and many more died of starvation and exhaustion until 1946. The guided tours available today include the underground cells, the descriptions of the interrogations and beatings carried out here in order to extort confessions. The STASI inherited the facility from the Soviet administration in 1951 and soon after imprisoned here members of the democratic workers uprising of 1953, known as 17 July. It was the location of the Espionage Data Processing Centre (HVA) and until 1974 Labout Camp X was located next to the prison for prisoners sentenced to forced labour.

Tours are possible by arrangement and are usually conducted by former inmates who provide excellent eyewitness accounts on prison conditions and interrogation methods employed by the former GDR’s Ministry of State Security (MfS).

Gallery

Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial

• View into a cell wing of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial on the grounds of the former remand prison of the Ministry of State Security.

• The entrance to the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial on the grounds of the former remand prison of the Ministry of State Security.

• View into a cell wing of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial on the grounds of the former remand prison of the Ministry of State Security on Genslerstraße.

• A cameraman films through the open hatch of a cell door at the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial on the grounds of the former remand prison of the Ministry of State Security.

• The former Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen.

• View through a hatch into a detention room of the former prison hospital of the GDR's State Security.

• The former Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen.

• Visitors in front of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial

• The gate of the former Stasi prison at the Hohenschönhausen Memorial in Berlin.

• View through barred windows of a wing in the former Stasi prison at the Hohenschönhausen Memorial in Berlin.

• The permanent exhibition at the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial

• New exhibit: a straitjacket

• Exhibits of the permanent exhibition at the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial

• A corridor of the former prison hospital of the GDR's State Security, photographed on May 13, 2011.

• View through a hatch into a detention room of the former prison hospital of the GDR's State Security, photographed on May 13, 2011.

• A yellowed book cover with the inscription "Handbuch der Inneren Medizin" (Manual of Internal Medicine) lies in the room of the director of the former prison hospital of the GDR's State Security Service.

• Washing stations of an operating room in the prison hospital of the GDR's State Security Service, photographed on May 13, 2011.

• View through a cell corridor of the former prison hospital of the GDR State Security Service,photographed on May 13, 2011.

• The Federal Government Commissioner for Stasi Records of the former GDR, Roland Jahn (right) and the director of the Hohenschönhausen Memorial, Hubertus Knabe. In the background are pictures from the photo exhibition "Faces of the Peaceful Revolution".

• Former Stasi prisoner Gilbert Furian looks through the door hatch of a cell in the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial. Furian, who was arrested in 1985 and detained seven months in the Hohenschönhausen Stasi prison, now guides visitors through the memorial and reports on his everyday life in prison. In this way, he tries to come to terms with the psychological consequences of his time in prison. (photographed on February 28, 2011)

• Rooms inside the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial in Berlin, photographed on August 12, 2010.

• Interrogation room in the former Stasi prison

• Interrogation room in the former Stasi prison

• Former Stasi prisoner Carl-Wolfgang Holzapfel walks into his old cell at the GDR State Security remand center in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen on Oct. 29, 2009.

• Former Stasi prisoner Carl-Wolfgang Holzapfel sits in his old cell at the GDR State Security remand center in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen on Oct. 29, 2009. As part of the Internet art action "24/7 Stasi-Live-Haft", Holzapfel spent a week in cell 207 and was filmed 24/7 by a webcam. Holzapfel and artist Franziska Vu wanted to draw attention to the fate of Stasi victims and their oppression. Holzapfel was detained in the cell for nine months after being arrested during a demonstration in 1965.

• A cell in the cell wing "Das U-Boot" (The Submarine) of the former Stasi Prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen

• The cell wing "Das U-Boot" (The Submarine) of the former Stasi Prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen

• Cable and telephone sockets in the former interrogation rooms of the former Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen

• Barbed wire fence of the former Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen

• Dim light shines into a room of the former prison hospital of the GDR's State Security Service.