Reporter had many ‘RIAS moments’

 

Courtesy photo

Graduate student and School of Journalism Web reporter Rosemary Pennington was a RIAS fellow in 2005. Here, she is in front of a remnant of the Berlin Wall.

The morning I stepped off my plane in Berlin and into the arms of a smiling German clad in black, I had no idea my life was about to change. All I knew was I was tired, hungry and grouchy.

I flew into Berlin as a RIAS fellow. The program, sponsored by the RIAS Berlin Kommission and the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation, is an exchange that allows American and German journalists to spend time in their counterpart countries. The idea is that, the more you know and understand about German-American relations, the better journalist you’ll be.

I applied to RIAS for two reasons, the first of these being my itchy feet. I have a severe case of wanderlust and to spend two weeks in Germany, Belgium and Poland on someone else’s dime, well, was a no-brainer.

More: Listen to reporter Rosemary Pennington’s radio piece, One Stasi Victim’s Story, originally broadcast on Birmingham, Ala., WBHM. Read about this week’s RIAS fellows visit.

The second reason was my curiosity about the world, in general. Granted, I always thought that curiosity would take me to Africa or Australia or Asia, but the more I read about German history and politics, the more intrigued I became.

So, here I was, in Berlin with a bunch of Americans who, mostly, spoke no Deutsch being shuttled around by Rainer Hasters (the tall German all in black) and crew. They took us to see the Brandenburg Gate, what’s left of the Wall, the Reichstag.

But the day that truly changed my life was about midway through our week in Berlin.

That rainy June morning, our minibus pulled up to this slab of a building surrounded by a high wall. One of our chaperones told us this was the central Stasi prison when the eastern half of Germany was the communist GDR. (The Stasi were the East German secret police when the country was still divided between East and West; they were notorious for turning neighbor against neighbor, family member against family member.) Today, our chaperone said, we would get to see inside the prison and a former Stasi prisoner would walk us through.

Now, I’m no chicken. I grew up near a maximum security prison in Ohio. I’ve been inside prisons on reporting projects. This, I thought, would be no big deal.

Ha!

I had my first, and only, anxiety attack at the Stasi prison.

First I should tell you about Hans Eberhard Zahn, the man who still fills my dreams. He was medium height, with a head of white hair and a smile that made me feel at peace. Instantly, I wanted to be near this man who seemed to radiate kindness and understanding. Zahn was a psychologist; the irony of this would not be lost on my group as we walked from cell to cell in the prison.

The prison was divided into the “old” and the “new” section. During much of Zahn’s seven years as a Stasi prisoner, he was held in the old section. The section underground. The section that received virtually no light.

As he led the way downstairs and through passageways, Zahn told the story of how he became a prisoner, of how, in his early 20s, he was taken for a spy (he was not) and continually interrogated by the Stasi. But no matter how the Stasi tortured or tormented him, Zahn would not confess to something he was not. So they left him down there, in the dark.

Through all of this, Zahn told jokes, recited Shakespeare, tried to put us at ease. Then, we arrived a cell similar to his. He ushered us all inside. “Here, come in,” he smiled. “There is room for you all.” I, being fearless, was the first in. I would also be the first out.

After all 13 American journalists crammed into the small cell, Zahn took center stage on one of the bunks. There he recited from Dante’s Inferno and I began to feel my chest cave in. I felt as though I couldn’t breathe. I felt hot and cold all at once. I took deep breaths and listened as Zahn talked about living in that black cell with only his thoughts for company. Zahn found refuge in math and Goethe, Shakespeare and psychological riddles.

At some point, I don’t remember what exactly Zahn was talking out, I had to push my way through the other journalists and get out into the passageway. I needed to be someplace with a semblance of openness. I was freaked out. And it took me almost the entire day to become un-freaked out.

That was my “RIAS moment,” as my fellow RIAS Dan Godwin likes to call them. There were others, like seeing the Russian graffiti on the Reichstag walls or walking into the Grand Place in Brussels, but that moment in the Stasi cell was when the importance of the exchange really hit me.

That trip truly changed my life. Not only did it make me evaluate the news I read about Germany and other parts of Europe with a more critical eye, it’s shaping my research focus in graduate school, something I never would have expected when I stepped off that plane in Berlin.

I have nightmares about that Stasi prison sometimes. I can smell the dampness and the cold, hear the water dripping all over again. That is an experience that will be with me forever and I’m more than thankful for it.