In Hohenschönhausen
(former East Berlin remand prison)
Claudia Bierschenk, July 2009
Where I am
for how long
I dont know
they wont say
could be anywhere
north, south
surely not West
the van black inside
hands and feet shackled
many hours
on a bumpy ride
neon lights catch me
by surprise
Get out!
Eyes down!
Move!
boots, uniforms
they all sounds alike
bare feet on leaf-patterned lino
I tipple like a child
on the way to
the headmasters office
the strip-search
each orifice checked
grey door shuts behind me
like a storys end
my name stays outside
I am ordered
to sit on a stool
at the centre of this cube
hands on knees
face down
they know how to get you
with an excuse of a window
glass bricks
de-construct sunlight
I can only tell day from night
and flush the toilet
when they say its alright
nights dont bring solace in sleep
the bulb they shine in my face
each time I turn
reminds me Im here
the interrogator is my new best friend
in his room a real window
where the same sky
pauses each day
after a while
they come for me at night
there must be others
at times a faint knocking
or is it the pipes
their torture is boredom
and deprivation
I want my parents
my sister
fresh air
sleep, laugh, cry, have a bath
I dont know
where I am
for how long
or how long
Ive been here
no chance of suicide
theyre so well prepared
I cant do nothing but
wait, wait, wait.
My mother’s file
Claudia Bierschenk, July 2009
‘It’s disappeared’
they said
most likely in shreds
crammed in with a million
others’ lives
in seventeen thousand
blue bin bags
Kaddish for Ms. Weinberg
Claudia Bierschenk, July 2009
a spinster, lady of style
well-read, and appalled
when they came into
her bedroom without knocking
in 1942 she was in her fifties
with no relations;
she had never been East
nor on a train for that long
a plaque on the pavement
outside my unsafe house
blackened by time
and countless innocent passers-by
while her charred bones are lost,
dusted with limestone, outside Riga
Claudia lives and works in Berlin. She is a part-time project manager and proofreader for a translation company. She teaches Business English one night a week and Spanish to two boisterous kids one afternoon a week. The rest of the time she walks through Berlin, tries to speak more German to her English boyfriend, drinks coffee, reads and writes. She discovered her love for writing in general and poetry in particular whilst living in England (now her second home), where she took a course in Creative Writing at Sheffield University.
Claudia spent her childhood and early teenage years in East Germany close to the former Iron Curtain, and a lot of her writing deals with life in East Germany before the re-unification with the West.
She has had a few pieces published in online poetry magazines, such as Alittlepoetry.com, Juice Magazine, and Public Republic. One of her poems has recently been published in an anthology by Forward Press, UK.
