My nervous agitation increased day to day, even from hour to hour. I nearly went raving mad. My health gave way. My foreman noticed my unaccustomed absent-mindedness and the mess I made of even the simplest tasks, and although I worked furiously I could not finish my daily task.
For several days I had fasted, thinking that after this I would be able to eat once more. The guard in charge of my section caught me in the act of throwing my dinner into the garbage pail. Although he usually did his job in a weary and indifferent manner, and hardly bothered about the prisoners, yet even he had noticed my behavior and appearance, and on this account had been keeping a sharp watch over me, as he later told me. I was taken immediately to the doctor. He was an elderly man who had been attached to the prison staff for a great many years. He listened patiently to my story, thumbed through the pages of my file and then said with the greatest nonchalance: “Prison psychosis. You’ll get over it. It’s not serious!”
I was taken to the infirmary and placed in an observation cell. Then I was given an injection, wrapped in cold sheets, and immediately I fell into a deep sleep. During the following days I was given sedatives and put on an invalid diet. My general nervous condition subsided and I began to pick up. At my own wish I was returned to my cell. It was first intended that I be put in a cell with other prisoners, but I had requested to be left on my own.
At this time I was informed by the prison warden that on account of my good behavior and industriousness I was to be promoted to the second degree and as a result would receive various alleviations of my prison existence. I might now write letters once a month, and could receive as much mail as I liked. I might also have books and instructional literature sent in to me. I might grow flowers in my window, and keep my light on until ten o’clock at night. If I wished, I could spend an hour or two with the other prisoners on Sundays and holidays.
The gleam of light provided by these facilities did far more to help me out of my depression than any sedatives. Nevertheless, it was to be a long time before I could entirely shake off the deeper effects of my neurosis. There are things between heaven and earth which are outside the daily run of man’s experience, but to which he can devote serious thought when he is completely alone. Is it possible to communicate with the dead? Often, during those hours of extreme mental agitation, yet before my mind became altogether bewildered, I saw my parents standing before me in the flesh. I spoke with them, and it seemed as though they were still watching over me. I still cannot find any explanation for this, nor have I, during all these years, ever spoken about it to anyone.
During the subsequent years of my imprisonment I was often able to observe this prison psychosis in others. Many cases ended in the padded cell; several in complete mental derangement. Those prisoners whom I knew, who had suffered from and overcome this psychosis, remained timid and depressed and pessimistic for a very long time afterward. Some of them were never able to shake off this deep feeling of depression.
Most of the suicides which occurred while I was there could, in my opinion, be traced back to this prison psychosis. The conditions in which they lived deprived the men of all those sensible reflections and restraints which in normal life often stay the suicide’s hand. The tremendous agitation which rages through a man so afflicted drives him to the final extremity—to put an end to his torment and find peace!
In my experience there were very few attempts by the prisoners to feign madness or delirium in order to escape from prison life, for the sentence was regarded as suspended from the moment of a man’s removal to a mental asylum until he was sent back to prison, unless it was decided that he must remain in an asylum for the rest of his life.
Also, curiously enough, most prisoners have an almost superstitious fear of going mad!
After I had risen from the depths and had recovered from my nervous breakdown, my life in prison continued without any particular incident. My peace of mind and detachment increased daily.
During my free time I eagerly studied the English language, and had books of instruction in it sent to me. Later I arranged for a continuous supply of English books and periodicals, and consequently I was able, in about a year, to learn this language without any outside assistance. I found this a tremendous mental corrective.
My friends and families of my acquaintances were constantly sending me good and valuable books on all manner of topics. Those on ethnology, racial research, and heredity interested me most of all, and I was happiest when studying these subjects. On Sundays I played chess with those prisoners whom I found congenial. This game, better described as a serious intellectual duel, is particularly well suited for maintaining and refreshing one’s elasticity of mind, which is perpetually threatened by the sheer monotony of life behind bars.
Because of my many varied contacts with the outside world through letters and newspapers and periodicals, I was now constantly receiving fresh and welcome mental stimulus. Should I become dejected or weary or utterly fed up, the memory of my previous “black days” acted like a scourge to drive such clouds away. The fear of a repetition of my illness was far too strong.
In the fourth year of my sentence I was promoted to the third degree, and this brought me fresh alleviations of my prison life. Every fortnight I could write a letter, as long as I wished, on plain paper. Work was no longer compulsory, but voluntary, and I was allowed to choose my work and received better pay for what I did.
Up till then the “reward for work,” as it was called, amounted to eight pfennigs for each daily shift completed, out of which four pfennigs might be spent on the purchase of additional food, and that, if circumstances were favorable during the month, meant fat.
In the third degree a day’s work was worth fifty pfennigs and a prisoner could spend the whole of this as he wished. Moreover he was allowed to spend up to twenty marks a month of his own money. Another privilege for men in the third degree was that they might listen to the radio and smoke at certain hours of the day.
At this time, too, the post of clerk in the prison stores fell vacant, and I was given it. I now had plenty of varied work to keep me busy all day long, and I heard items of news from the prisoners of every sort who came daily to the store for a change of clothing, or for their laundry or tools. The officials in charge also told me all the prison gossip.
The stores were a collection point for all prison news and rumors. It was there that I learned how quickly rumors of all kinds are started and spread, and was able to see their effect. News and rumors, whispered from man to man in the greatest possible secrecy, are the prisoner’s elixir of life. The more a prisoner was isolated, the more effective was the rumor that reached his ears. The really naive prisoners were ready to believe absolutely anything they were told.
One of my companions who, like me, was employed in the stores, and who for over ten years had kept the inventories, took a satanic delight in inventing and spreading baseless rumors, and in observing their effect. He did this so cunningly, however, that it was never possible to put the blame on him for the serious results that sometimes flowed from his efforts.