Arbeit macht frei: - Fredrick Töben

and to realise that normal instincts had to be controlled. You must always
keep still when the fellows try to unsettle you and never raise an arm as is
normal for protection when individuals get too close to you – even when
you wish to re-adjust your smock because an officer had grabbed you and
pulled you towards him. Any lifting of an arm is immediately understood as
a threat to officers, and they eagerly await that opportune moment where
they can throw you on to the concrete floor and hog-tie you, legs and arms
behind your back, to be left there for a few hours.
As they began to leave, one commanded, ‘Don’t lean against the table’.
It amazed me how warm the smock turned out to be because later in
clothes I felt colder, and even not wearing shoes and just being barefoot was
good because I could lie on the bunk and elevate my legs.
I looked about the cell that would be my living quarters for the next 3
months. A blue-painted steel-framed table and stool were fixed to the
barren walls painted a cream colour. The toilet bowl, washbasin and mirror
were stainless steel. On the concrete bed-base lay a canvas covered mattress
with two canvas blankets, but there was no pillow. The fluorescent light
resembled a 2-m streetlight. There was nothing else in this windowless cell
where daylight projected through a triangle-shaped ceiling shaft with three
rows of 1 x 1½-inch thick-glass window panes.
There was an intercom system on the wall and upon closer inspection I
noticed a screw missing in the plate holding it in the wall, where there
should have been a screw, there was a slight protrusion – it was an
electronic pin-size glass eye, which watched over me as I lay on my bed. It
was the prison administration’s way of ensuring it fulfilled the duty of care
towards all resident prisoners. Some prisoners commit suicide when they
are snapped out of courts, off the streets, even from their homes, and thrust
into the harsh reality of penal solitude.
A little later, around 9 p.m., I heard a rustle in the corridor and quickly
stood to attention near the table. The door trap clanked open and in a quite
civilised tone an officer said to come forward and read the paper before
me.
‘I can’t read without my glasses’.
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