IN THE TIGER CAGE - ISOLATION IN THE BASEMENT OF RUMMELSBURG
How the State Security Tried to Break My Will
This is the seventh volume in the "Our Time" series.
East Berlin, German Democratic Republic (GDR), 1987
After a failed drug-smuggling attempt, Bernhard Christoph Lichtinger is sent to the notorious Rummelsburg prison in East Germany.
When he refuses to work for the Stasi, the East German secret police, and later refuses prison labour as well, he is transferred to the so-called Tiger Cage – an isolation cell deep beneath the prison.
Three steps forward.
Turn.
Three steps back.
For weeks, his world consists of a steel barrier, a wooden board, a metal bucket and a small air shaft.
No conversation.
No clock.
No toothbrush.
No distraction.
Only cold, silence and his own thoughts.
While the Stasi waits for his resistance to break, he faces a different battle: loneliness, monotony and the question of how much freedom can be taken from a person before he loses himself.
A beam of light from the air shaft. A flying ant resting on a finger. Things that seem meaningless outside an isolation cell can become an entire world within it.
IN THE TIGER CAGE is the true story of a man who, in an East German isolation cell, had to learn what remains of a human being when everything has been taken away.
Bernhard Christoph Lichtinger writes from lived experience – from setbacks, detours, new beginnings, and encounters that do not need to be invented. His books emerge where real life leaves its marks.
If you have not yet read a volume from the book series “OUR TIME”, you can begin with one of the following books. Each volume stands on its own and explores a different aspect of our lives.
Volume 2: THE DOG CATCHERS OF BLENHEIM
Volume 4: THE WORLD IN THE MIND
Volume 6: THE ART OF LETTING GO
Volume 8: not yet published