Halfway through a two-week break between hearings, Vi offers six hand-written pages of insight into the reality and brutality of prison “life” (plus a drawing of a camel), having spent nine months in pre-trial detention (now ten at time of publishing), which is ongoing as the trial continues. –Josie
4–9 June 2026
Hey sweetheart,
Here’s another update from this institution. Every day, something awful happens – I can barely keep up with writing it all down – and there are so many situations, big and small, that reflect just how inhumane things are here, how lost we are in the midst of this chaos, this “lawless” situation. We’re at its mercy.
In the cell next to ours, a woman had a mental breakdown, overnight – schizophrenia, dementia, or some kind of prison psychosis? Her cellmate rang the bell, and the night-shift worker arrived in the evening. The cellmate was panicking because the other woman had completely transformed from one moment to the next, she’d apparently been watching her while she went to the bathroom, etc...
We listened at the door and heard how the officers prescribed sedatives to the panicking cellmate in a psychotic state, but they couldn’t transfer her to another cell, and they said, “Is it better to transfer her, or for her to run into the door?” With the medication, the situation was supposedly under control again.
Today I was at the hospital myself (next story), the psychotic woman was there and tried to talk to me, but it didn’t make any sense. During the break, we spoke with her, standing at her cell door, her hands shaking. We asked if she was ok, but she just stared at us. Her ice-blue, empty, vacant eyes. Just staring at us. She came closer, stared at us, didn’t react. I tried giving her a thumbs up, sideways and down, maybe she’d understand hand signals. Still no reaction. Another lost soul here, simply locked away, sedated, quite likely to walk out of here completely broken – her cellmate too – and who knows how much longer she can hold out here. Ugh. Creepy. Intense. You can just completely fall apart here, no one finds out, no one checks on you.
The 18-year-old, who is unfortunately being held in the adult detention center, and with whom I’ve grown close over the past 9 months, has also been in terrible shape since yesterday. You only need to take a look at her to see her condition, white as chalk. I went to the office and pressed them to get her to the hospital as soon as possible, but the officers were already annoyed. I asked, since the detainee was alone in her cell at the time, if I could visit her in her cell for 2 hours. Nope. She should have reported it yesterday evening or in the morning, because she’s been here for a while, so she could have gotten to the hospital faster. I said she’s an 18-year-old, surrounded by adults, so of course she’s shy, etc. The response: She’s been here for a while and knows how everything works. That was the end of it. I stood between my cell door and the hallway and said, “We’re in jail, we’re completely helpless here!” The officer replied, “That's right, you said it, you’re in jail!” So I locked myself in. The hospital simply told my young fellow inmate that she wasn’t eating enough as a “diagnosis” – how are they supposed to know that? (And it’s not true.) How can someone be constantly throwing up and “not eating enough”?! Where does that come from?
We’re just shrugged off here. If we take sedatives or sleeping pills, jackpot for the prison. Main thing, be quiet.
Other than that. The room feels smaller and smaller. Knowing I still have hearings until January, the walls seem to be closing in. Pressure on my chest, fear, etc. Grief... I miss softness. Nothing and no one is soft; even among the fellow inmates I’ve befriended, there’s no real softness, because everyone is in a state of emergency. I consistently suppress my fragility until I can’t take it anymore, and then I end up crying briefly every couple of weeks – afterwards, I feel a little better for a bit. But becoming “weak” is scary here, since I’m alone with my fear and grief. And only I can pull myself out of it. I miss softness…
So, it’s 20:03, and now another thing before the day has ended.
My cellmate pressed the emergency button because she started feeling nauseous too – hopefully there isn’t a pandemic-level gastrointestinal outbreak here. She asked for VOMEX. The officer on the interco snapped at her, asking why she was ringing during the night shift instead of the day shift 30 minutes earlier. Shame on her for not getting sick on time! NAUGHTY PRISONERS!
Otherwise, right now we’re glad that the early summer weather has been replaced by “good prison weather”. So, rain, storms, clouds. Heat + sun = extra torment. Tomorrow is Saturday. It’s been a holiday since Thursday, today’s a bridge day, and now the weekend. That means everyone’s feeling lousy – we won't get out of our cells until 11 in the morning for a 1-hour lunch break, instead of being able to get out at 9:15 like on weekdays, which brings on claustrophobia, pressure and anxiety. And now, instead of just two days, it’s four. At least we’ve made it through 2/4.
This week we had 1x mashed potatoes. At least it was only 1x. When the storm hit, I watched the tiny tip of a tree crown, which I can just barely see over the wall, swaying in the wind. I could feel the storm a little through the perforated metal sheet on the window, and even a few raindrops hit my face. I thought about past moments of freedom when rain and storms touched me, and how thunderstorms remind us that there is something much greater than us humans. That gives me hope and a sense of connection to the universe, through all the walls and bars, through space and time.
7 June 2026, 22:19: Funnily, and infuriatingly, the pastor recently described during service how spring and summer are now blossoming in all their abundance. Something that really hurts, since we’re shut away, unable to live out these springtime feelings. She realized her faux pas and said, we can be grateful, as we can at least see a few flowers and treetops from the window. That’s become my running gag – she just made it worse. Whenever things are shittier than shitty for me or my friend, I say, BUT! We’re grateful! We can see the tops of the trees over the prison wall! → enhanced with sarcasm, of course.
News about the prisoner next to us who had a mental breakdown: she said in front of other prisoners that she was going to kill her cellmate. That FINALLY made it possible for her cellmate to be moved to another cell… How the hell did she even manage to last just one minute in there? – UPDATE: SHE’S CONSTANTLY LOSING IT. All day long she’s banging on the walls, screaming, “LOCK UP!”, something in Russian. She puts the TV in the bathroom, so we can hear it blaring through the ventilation. She’s throwing things around and slamming her cup against the window. It. Is. So. Loud. My cellmate has her hearing tomorrow. Phew. We’ve now pressed the emergency button twice and are praying that the night shift does SOMETHING. A little while ago, she, meaning the one in the psychotic state / Knax, also rang the night shift, and we heard through the wall that she ordered 2 beers to be delivered in 1 hour. Haha. Please let it calm down. My nerves are shot.
The sky was really beautiful tonight. I had this deceptive feeling as if I’d been at the beach and was now back in my apartment, tired from the sun. But it was only 45 minutes that I'd been in that concrete desert, aka courtyard. Where the latest trend is for everyone to walk around with their midriffs exposed. And wearing those prison sunglasses from the Massak store. Ok. I’m going to lie down for a bit.
9 June 2026 Well. The day before yesterday there was an alarm – someone on the pre-trial detention floor below us went berserk. All the officers were running, we were standing in the hallway in front of the glass door, we were actually supposed to go out into the courtyard. Through the Plexiglas door, we saw officers from upstairs and elsewhere running off. Some ran toward the wrong gate, and we prisoners ended up waving the officers in the right direction. Unpaid, without officer status, of course. Then an officer came into our hallway and shouted, “Lockdown!” Whenever there’s an alarm and we’re in the middle of a break, we get locked back up right away. Once, I was taking a shower and was too slow putting my pants on, so I got locked in the shower for 20 minutes until the alarm ended. Then, when we were locked in the day before yesterday, one prisoner protested verbally, asking why we weren’t allowed back outside if we weren’t the problem. One of the officers completely lost her temper and yelled at her. It was as if she’d been waiting for the chance to REALLY go off on someone.
I hate TV. I hate not having anywhere to retreat to. There was a sensational report on TV about Görlitzer Park, drug problems in Berlin-Kreuzberg and apartment buildings overrun by “junkies.” I told my roommate how strange I find it to see and hear places I know so well being portrayed that way. As if Berlin were nothing but that, and as if there weren’t exactly the same kinds of places, the same addiction, and the same parks littered with syringes in the tiny town where I grew up. Honestly, prison is a thousand times worse – we’re locked up, people going through severe withdrawal, on strong medication, having psychotic episodes. Tonight we turned on the fan to enjoy “white noise” and drown out the noise from our neighbor, who’s now on a higher dose of medication, and the noise from all the other inmates… prison hacks.
5 more mornings here, then finally the hearing – getting away from here for a few hours, seeing people. I don’t think anyone looks forward to hearings, except my cellmate and me, because then we get to see the people we love who aren’t here. I even prefer the court officials to the o eshere (of course there are exceptions, of course).
So. Today I’m sad. I miss you, a thousand times over, I miss myself, intellectual stimulation, my strong body, hugs, softness, a comfortable place to sit, even ordinary cleaning supplies. Right now, for example, I'd crazy love to clean everyone's windows in.the outside world. I’d even sleep in the courtroom and scrub the floor with a toothbrush. I’d rather do that than be here. I think my face has aged. My back definitely has. Ah, a fellow inmate gave the psychotic one a shower – no one actually working at the prison would have bothered to, not even if her stench were seeping through all the walls. A lot of things here fill me with rage every day. How much rage can a person endure without some softness to balance it out?
– There! I’ve misused you as my diary. Feel free to share, translate, and spread my stories. I hereby give you permission. It’s important for me to give a glimpse behind these walls. Behind these walls, where humanity is twisted.
I love you – VI
Attached: a DinA5 drawing