I found the museum as a whole to be very tragic. I viewed the museum as a documentation of what was happening during the era from the opening until World War Two, a remembrance of what happened during the second world war, and a celebration of the small amounts of good that were still possible despite the things that were happening during that awful period.
I distinctly remember the goal of this prison in particular being reforming criminals, allowing them to reintegrate into society after release and hopefully having learned from their mistakes. I do have to point out one massive flaw in their plan, which our guide did go over briefly: Humans need to have social contact or else they go insane. While I am not an expert by any measure on human psychology, I do know that I have had many conversations with doctorate level professionals in that field of study, and I can absolutely say that all of them (at least as of holding those conversations) say that without social interaction the human psyche will degrade. I would say this would be well within what I would imagine historically would have been the goal of prisons, however this prison was specifically constructed to “treat the prisoners as people and not beasts” (roughly paraphrased from our wonderful guide.)I do also understand that while this is known today, it likely would not have been a researched phenomenon at the time, and that during the construction of this prison we did not yet fully understand magnetism, much less achieve the slightly more in depth cause-and-effect understanding of how to mentally destroy someone.
I also found the designer’s following of the labor minimizing circular structure and simultaneous doubling of that same structure to be somewhat pointless on a structural level; why bother with the central hub if you not only end up making two central hubs, but add wings onto the ends of the hubs that you cannot watch from either central viewing point? On the one hand, the Women’s wing I completely understand separating, but the fact that there were two hubs defeated the whole purpose of following the American model.
On less of an engineering-related note, and more of a moral one, I find the stories of the prisoners and staff colluding to create medical excuses for some of the older women and children to escape during Nazi control to be very moving, and I think that very much is a good example of people doing good despite every single thing around them being against them. Especially the story with the baby being fed wine to sneak it out via the dirty laundry, as if anyone involved in the process had been found out, it is more than likely that they would be at minimum jailed, and from my understanding probably immediately executed. Yet, as people historically have done, they did what they thought was right, instead of what was legal.
- William Shaker
I feel the plan was a good idea in theory, at least for the time, but the isolation was definitely an oversite. On one hand, the prisoners had a lot of privacy and there was probably a lot less violence between prisoners. However, the solitude definitely took a tole on the prisoners mental health. When we visited the Lombroso Museum (as the tour guide mentioned some of the stuff in the Lombroso Museum previously was in the New Prison Museum) I remember looking at the jars that were collected from past prisoners. Some jars clearly indicating how some of the prisoners went mad from the isolation and ending up hanging themselves because of it. Where the isolation drove them to their own death.
ReplyDeleteNow although the history of the prison was pretty grim, I did appreciate the guide telling us about the more positive stories. The one about the nun that stayed to help the women's wing. The staff helping the some escape when the Nazis took control of the situation. With how grim the prison was, it helps to remember that there was still good and hope that existed in such grave times. That there were still people willing to risk everything to help an innocent life. That if it weren't for them so many more people may have lost their lives. The better stories helping to break the tense and upsetting atmosphere that the prison seemed to exude.
~ Layla Polacheck
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