Last week, looking for some history, we had a walk in the former StaSi neighbourhood around the Magdalena Strasse in Berlin. We found plenty of touristic information signs about the buildings and infrastructure of the StaSi. It was very interesting.

Still we were extremely annoyed to notice that the „women“ prison Lichtenberg was made completely invisible. It was mentionned as the former „Magdalena Strasse Prison“, a prison of the StaSi were people were kept in custody, interviewed, sentenced to death and murdered; it was told that „Magda“ was even turned to the nickname of StaSi repression, but not a single word about this prison being still in use today, and thus as a women prison.

We were not „surprised“. We knew already that „men“ jails, like Moabit, are made very visible not to let people forget what will happen to them if they get subversive or criminal, whereas „women“ jails are silenced, made invisible, that they are supposed not to exist so that the binary, cis patriarcal myth of submissive, harmless „women“ (in fact, cis and trans women as well as intersexual and non binary persons) can be perpetuated.

We were not surprised, we were disgusted to see the cynical continuity of repression wiped out of history and the silencing of our friends, companions, and every other prisonner that was held in the jail Lichtenberg since the fall of the DDR.

So we took a pen and some paint, and we added the current jail Lichtenberg as well as our solidarity to prisonners to every single touristic sign and to a wall close to the jail. After this, we felt better.

Radical Tourists