Arbeit macht frei: - Fredrick Töben

‘Yes, Sir’.
I do not disagree with the fellow because I had not touched the basin since
the night before. As I make my way to the shower I’m asked, ‘Are you
going to wear your shoes today?’.
‘Yes, Sir’.
One of the officers responds softly but loud enough to ensure I hear his
comment, ‘That’s a good start for the day’.
As I enter the shower the officer handing me a razor says, ‘Here’s your
shaver, and use it!’. I was about to respond that I like my week’s beard
because I could turn out to be the wild man of Yatala – but the dream
shatters.
After a week in this solitary place I receive my clothes, and I’m invited to go
for exercise after lunch from 1 p.m. to 3.30 p.m. The gym, if it can be
called one, is along the well-worn corridor past the rubbish bin, then turn
right, up against the wall for frisking, and then through a door and into a
wire cage that is about 10 m 2
. There are five other cages like it and
gradually each fills with a single prisoner. I do my rounds – 100 clockwise
and 100 anti-clockwise. The others walk, smoke and talk. Some manage to
catch a little sunlight, which is disappearing fast as the afternoon progresses.
Pete, from Cell 5, is in the cage next to me and we begin a conversation.
Although it is not wise to be asking any prisoner why they’re inside, I have
never felt I should not ask, and usually the response is informative for me.
‘Why are you here in protective custody?’.
Pete is a bikie and the many tattoos that grace his whole body attest to his
membership in one of South Australia’s clubs that Premier Mike Rann
wishes to proscribe: his media announcements state he is tough on crime.
Pete looks at me in a funny way, and with his hands strokes his goatee and
long ponytail at the same time. ‘Mate, this isn’t protective custody, this is the
punishment unit’.
‘What?’.
‘Yea, didn’t you know? Why are you here?’.
‘Contempt of court’.
‘What didn’t the judges like? How’d you upset them?’.
‘I refuse to believe in the Holocaust’.
‘One of those things’.
Pete was familiar with legal procedures and he didn’t quite believe my story
about not knowing I was in G Division, the punishment wing of Yatala.
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