letter to my professor

"TO EACH HIS OWN"
The words over the main gate of the concentration camp at Buchenwald.



Nikusha Chkhaidze
letter to my professor

Dear Professor,
It has been quite a while since our last meeting, and it may be some time before we meet again. and in the meantime I’ve been thinking about what we discussed. I’ve come across some quite specific and interesting facts and tendencies about the subject of prison or being in prison. Since we met that evening at the art school. I’ve been thinking of what your friend from Balkans said to you; it was something like, if you insult the president of your country, nothing will happen. if I insult the president of my country, again nothing will happen – the only difference is that I’ll be put in prison for it.
This was quite a smart way of putting it. I can imagine how difficult it must be, and how for many people it must be a tragedy to be under that kind of physical pressure, which can destroy you psychologically. But then again, what is the more general problem here? I think it lies rather in the fact that “nothing happens”.
Let’s say that you said something bad about your president, and nothing happened. And let’s say your friend said something bad about his president, and nothing happened but he was sent to prison for it. Your president, as the representative of his country, votes for the bombing of your friend’s country, including the prison he’s in. Again you say something, and again nothing happens. If my president had the chance to support the decision to bomb, there is no doubt he definitely would do it. I’m pretty sure I would definitely say something, and it is definite that nothing would happen. So as we can see, in each case we’re saying something and “nothing happens”. But something does happen: someone is left worse off than they were before. So who then is really in prison?
At the NGBK recently there was an exhibition about prison. My girlfriend was one of the organizers, and was also showing a work of her own, a kiosk displaying items made in prison. I helped her with the show and got to know something about the subject. I heard one of the prison directors say: “if we don’t keep them busy, then they will keep us busy”. Isn’t allowing us to say something (although we know nothing will happen) a way of keeping us busy so we don’t keep them busy? Why do we say anything if nothing happens? Why we are making art if nothing happens? The image that comes to my mind is of an impotent prisoner masturbating with a condom.
Before I end, I would like to say a word or two about the concentration camp at Buchenwald. From an early age, I heard my father mention its name quite often. During the Soviet period my father was lucky enough to come to Germany and see some of the country. When he talked about Buchenwald, I could feel and see that it was something special, something unforgettable. I finally visited it myself, and found I was seeing the same things my father had described – with one exception. Something had changed at Buchenwald since the nineteen seventies; it was now officially acknowledged that after the war the Soviet regime had kept Buchenwald running in its former capacity as a concentration camp, so in the forest that at the back I was able to find 7000 more graves than my father had. It is interesting to wonder how many more our children will discover.
It’s a pity that Buchenwald today presents what happened there as if it belonged entirely to the past, offering audio guides which talk about what happened as if were all over for good. It shows the tragedy, but not the disillusionment that went with it, and doesn’t make the point that, after all that happened, we haven’t learnt much.