IN THE TIGER CAGE - ISOLATION IN THE BASEMENT OF RUMMELSBURG
How the State Security Tried to Break My Will
This is the 5. volume in the "Stations" 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 entire 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.
The accommodation is basic.
Only cold, silence and his own thoughts remain – which, after several weeks, is considerably more company than he would have preferred.
Outside, life continues. Down here, time has almost nothing left to measure itself by.
While the Stasi waits for his resistance to break, Bernhard faces a different battle: loneliness, monotony and the question of how much freedom can be taken from a person before he begins to lose himself.
A beam of light from the air shaft. A flying ant resting on a finger. Things that would barely deserve a second glance outside an isolation cell can become an entire world within it.
IN THE TIGER CAGE is the fifth volume of the autobiographical STATIONS series and the true story of a man who had to discover what remains when almost everything is taken away – freedom, privacy, comfort, conversation and any reliable sense of time.
It is a story about isolation, resistance and survival, told with honesty, self-irony and black humour – the kind that sometimes makes you laugh when, strictly speaking, there has long been nothing left to laugh about.
Because even in an East German isolation cell, absurdity does not disappear.
If anything, it gets more time to introduce itself.
Bernhard Christoph Lichtinger writes from lived experience – from setbacks, detours, new beginnings and encounters that do not need to be invented. His stories emerge where real life leaves its marks.
If you have not yet read a volume from the book series “STATIONS”, you can begin with one of the following books. Each volume stands on its own and explores a different aspect of our lives.
Volume 1: WHAT THE FORTUNE TELLER KNEW (IN PROGRESS)
Volume 2: THE MAN WITH THE CRUTCH
Volume 3: TRANSIT – THE LAST DAYS OF FREEDOM
Volume 4: DEPARTURE INTO THE UNKNOWN
Volume 6: FRIDAY THE 13TH (IN PROGRESS)