By Ruben McCarthy
Today we visited the Berlin Wall Memorial, where we watched a film about the background history before being led around the site by a tour guide. We learnt about the escape attempts from East Berlin and the methods that were used to try and prevent this from happening. Seeing the faces of those who lost their lives showed the human loss and tragedy of this border – it was shocking to see such young men, women and children included in the gallery. In terms of journalistic values, it shows how important freedom of speech and movement is to democracy. It seems so nightmarish to think you could wake up one morning and become part of a locked in society with no way out and no voice.
In the evening we headed to the Stasi prison, where we met a man who was held there during the late 60s for printing political messages in support of the Prague Spring. He gave us a tour around the inside of the building, where we saw the tiny, cramped cells with no windows. To hear about his experience of solitary confinement was quite emotional and he talked further about how being able go outside in an exercise area to move and look up at the sky on rare occasions gave him some mental relief.
