This brochure in memorial of 30 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall is talking about the topic of homosexuality in times of the Berlin Wall. Stories from people that used to leave in East Berlin accompanied by illustration show the brutal reality of people living in post soviet society.
It was noticeable, that the paragraph 178, that made homosexuality a crime was abolished in the East long before the west did; In that way, homosexuality seemed to be more accepted on that side of the wall. Still, gay people where targeted as “being against the system” and that’s why police and pass controls where a normal thing after leaving the Gay bar on Friday night.
Another Story told me Mario Röllig: he was incarcerated in the Stasi-prison for trying to escape the DDR. Stories of silent torture, such as deprivation of sleep and food, psychoterror or lack of fresh air and overheating in summer and shutting the heating down in winter are common example of how the prisoners where treated. The worst example of torture was one cabin, where no sound and no light was able to be experienced: not even your own screaming you could perceive. Every person who been sent to this cabin nowadays is under serious psychological treatments, most of those persons are still not recovered yet. It is incredible to think that this episodes of brutality took place in Berlin just 30 years ago - it is to be said that some people working in the Free Democratic Party in Germany are still the same as they where 30 years ago.
This brochure in memorial of 30 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall is talking about the topic of homosexuality in times of the Berlin Wall. Stories from people that used to leave in East Berlin accompanied by illustration show the brutal reality of people living in post soviet society.
It was noticeable, that the paragraph 178, that made homosexuality a crime was abolished in the East long before the west did; In that way, homosexuality seemed to be more accepted on that side of the wall. Still, gay people where targeted as “being against the system” and that’s why police and pass controls where a normal thing after leaving the Gay bar on Friday night.
Another Story told me Mario Röllig: he was incarcerated in the Stasi-prison for trying to escape the DDR. Stories of silent torture, such as deprivation of sleep and food, psychoterror or lack of fresh air and overheating in summer and shutting the heating down in winter are common example of how the prisoners where treated. The worst example of torture was one cabin, where no sound and no light was able to be experienced: not even your own screaming you could perceive. Every person who been sent to this cabin nowadays is under serious psychological treatments, most of those persons are still not recovered yet. It is incredible to think that this episodes of brutality took place in Berlin just 30 years ago - it is to be said that some people working in the Free Democratic Party in Germany are still the same as they where 30 years ago.