Caught during their escape of East Germans thousands were sentenced to long prison terms. We talked to one of them, Thomas Lukow, who was imprisoned here in Berlin Hohenschonhausen. In the mid 80s, at the age of 21, Thomas is trying to leave East Germany. He stopped at the Czechoslovak border and sentenced to 20 months in prison.
He spent five months in solitary confinement in Hohenschönhausen before being transferred to another facility.
"At some point, it became obvious: I had to leave this country. I was young, I wanted to study, I wanted to see the world, I've always had itchy feet and my dream was to go to New York. This is where the desire came from, "he says.
"The worst memories is uncertainty, yes, uncertainty and boredom, the fact that nothing happens, demoralization. It comes automatically. It torments you. You're not even allowed to listen to the radio or watch TV. Nothing. Once a week, a book could be through this opening. But even that was depressing, because it was of poor Soviet literature. "
At the time, it was common that the Federal Republic of Germany to pay a ransom in the form of GDR to release prisoners. But Thomas was not a sufficiently important prisoner.
"I think this gradual psychological shift, it was the worst. You ask, what do they want? Where is it going to take me? How many years will I spend here? Does west would pay to release me? All this uncertainty was undermining me. I was 21, I spent my 22nd birthday in jail. I know a lot of people and overnight I was completely cut off from society. And I think it was their goal. "
Officially, however, there were no political prisoners in the GDR. Opponents were convicted of agitation against the state and the fugitives to escape from the Republic.
"Between 1949 and 1989, there were approximately 230,000 political prisoners, says sociologist Ehrhart Neubert. In the period after the war, there were many more, mostly via the Soviet military administration. People who were either Nazis or people who had risen against the Soviet power "
In the 80s, the economic situation has worsened communist countries and regimes have weakened. But few were so those who imagined a system collapse under popular pressure.
"After my arrest and detention by the Stasi, I was convinced that this system would last for 1,000 years yet, but I did not know what was happening in the background and so I was convinced that nothing ' would change. I knew the people who supported and carried the system "reflects Thomas.
When browsing the exhibition on political prisoners in East Germany, Thomas designs just such a system could have existed for so long.
"It was a system that applied their ideas quite immoral, through terror and violence. What could he be any good there? When you think that a whole continent, Eastern Europe, has degenerated economically, environmentally, morally, the idea itself becomes unbearable. "
After the fall of the wall, Thomas has built a new life. In recent years, he traveled widely and visits schools to tell young people what life was like in East Germany.
