The last living survivor of the Stasi prison's underground U-Boot wing returns to the site of his imprisonment.
In the early 1950s, Arno Drefke was imprisoned in the U-Boot wing of the Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, spending months in isolation under psychological pressure as a political prisoner silenced under the SED dictatorship. Now the last living survivor of that underground cell block, the film follows Arno as he revisits the memories of his imprisonment and the life that followed.
His testimony interweaves rare archival material and staged reconstructions to make the detention spaces visible, examining how repression shaped him and his family across generations. Together with his daughter Birgit Hesse, the film expands from a personal account into a wider reflection on political persecution in the DDR and the questions it raises for democracy today.
This project is more than a historical document. It preserves the voice of one of the last witnesses of early DDR persecution and makes it accessible for present and future generations.
Arno Drefke is the last living survivor of the U-Boot wing in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. His testimony opens a rare window into the methods of political persecution in the early DDR. What does freedom mean when it is threatened? What responsibility do younger generations carry when they receive and pass on the experiences of those who came before?
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