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Representing Political Oppression: The Stasi Prison as an Edifice of Cultural Memory in Modern Berlin

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology ((PSIPP))

Abstract

In June of 2015 during a stay in Berlin we visited, on successive days, the Stasi Museum and the Stasi Prison, in former East Berlin. The Stasi Prison operated as a remand and interrogation facility continually from immediately after World War II until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dismantling of the communist regime in East Germany. Virtually all of the many thousands of citizens who populated the Prison during those four decades were political prisoners, and as such the representation of their experience in the site provides important insights into the nature of the regime and its impact on daily life. The Stasi Museum is in the former headquarters of the East German Ministry for State Security in the Berlin

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Correspondence to Jacqueline Z. Wilson .

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Wilson, J.Z., Boyle, I. (2017). Representing Political Oppression: The Stasi Prison as an Edifice of Cultural Memory in Modern Berlin. In: Wilson, J., Hodgkinson, S., Piché, J., Walby, K. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Tourism. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56135-0_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56135-0_24

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-56134-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-56135-0

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