This is probably in the news in Germany, but thought I'd post since folks here in the US may not have seen it. Orignial article has 8 photos of Chancellor Merkle at at Hohenschoenhausen.
Merkel recalls "brutal" Communism at Stasi prison
Tue May 5, 2009 10:46am EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/world...5443S120090505
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged people Tuesday not to forget the brutality of Communist East Germany when she visited the former prison of the Stasi secret police in eastern Berlin.
In the year that Germany marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Merkel said it was crucial for young people to gain a sense of how human rights were violated in Stasi prisons.
"This memorial makes clear in an authentic setting in what brutal ways the dignity of human beings was damaged, and how lives were destroyed and torn apart for trivial reasons," Merkel said during a visit to the Hohenschoenhausen prison.
Merkel, a trained physicist who grew up in the German Democratic Republic or East Germany, became the first chancellor from the former GDR in 2005.
Visitors can still see the barbed wire, watchtowers, cramped cells and interrogation rooms in the prison at Hohenschoenhausen where political prisoners were detained. They were sometimes held for years without ever appearing before a court.
Since opening in 1994, the Hohenschoenhausen memorial has received rapidly growing numbers of annual visitors -- from 3,000 that year to nearly 250,000 in 2008.
The opening scene of the Oscar-winning 2006 film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) was set in Hohenschoenhausen, although it was not filmed in the real prison.
Merkel's visit was to mark the 20th anniversary of the East German local elections of May 7, 1989. Merkel said the civil rights activists who protested against those rigged elections ushered in the end of the dictatorship.
"May 7 was the beginning of the end of the GDR," Merkel said earlier this week. "In this year of the peaceful revolution we should think of those who showed courage, by revealing the local elections to be a sham, or by escaping the GDR in protest."
After meeting with former prisoners and high school students, Merkel said witness accounts and memorials were crucial so that youngsters who did not personally experience the regime could learn about what it was really like.
(Reporting by Jacob Comenetz, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Merkel recalls "brutal" Communism at Stasi prison
Tue May 5, 2009 10:46am EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/world...5443S120090505
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged people Tuesday not to forget the brutality of Communist East Germany when she visited the former prison of the Stasi secret police in eastern Berlin.
In the year that Germany marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Merkel said it was crucial for young people to gain a sense of how human rights were violated in Stasi prisons.
"This memorial makes clear in an authentic setting in what brutal ways the dignity of human beings was damaged, and how lives were destroyed and torn apart for trivial reasons," Merkel said during a visit to the Hohenschoenhausen prison.
Merkel, a trained physicist who grew up in the German Democratic Republic or East Germany, became the first chancellor from the former GDR in 2005.
Visitors can still see the barbed wire, watchtowers, cramped cells and interrogation rooms in the prison at Hohenschoenhausen where political prisoners were detained. They were sometimes held for years without ever appearing before a court.
Since opening in 1994, the Hohenschoenhausen memorial has received rapidly growing numbers of annual visitors -- from 3,000 that year to nearly 250,000 in 2008.
The opening scene of the Oscar-winning 2006 film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) was set in Hohenschoenhausen, although it was not filmed in the real prison.
Merkel's visit was to mark the 20th anniversary of the East German local elections of May 7, 1989. Merkel said the civil rights activists who protested against those rigged elections ushered in the end of the dictatorship.
"May 7 was the beginning of the end of the GDR," Merkel said earlier this week. "In this year of the peaceful revolution we should think of those who showed courage, by revealing the local elections to be a sham, or by escaping the GDR in protest."
After meeting with former prisoners and high school students, Merkel said witness accounts and memorials were crucial so that youngsters who did not personally experience the regime could learn about what it was really like.
(Reporting by Jacob Comenetz, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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