We arrived at five in the for simple words, her concentra ti on evening, travelling in slides, ideas trail into a foggy silence. jump suits and slippers in 'The worst thing for me about Lexing­ an eight-seater plane with the mar­ ton was the implied sex ual threat ­ shals. We drove right up to the men walking in on us in our cells, "entrance of the unit and there were whether we were undressed or not, on hundreds of prisoners' faces at the the toilet or not, the continuous strip windows watching. Prisoners had searches. When you're in that situation actually been assigned to build the there's a very thin line between what is High Security Unit and it was com­ assault and what is not and that was mon knowledge that I was going to played on ve ry conscio usly by them. be moved there. There were 1,600 They knew that with o ur associa ti on prisoners and the guards took the with the women's movement we found occasion to lock down the entire it particula rl y offensive. They played it prison. One woman screamed out, for what it was worth.' 'Hello Susan, we know it's you.' I Susan Rosenberg, Alejandrina Torres started jumping up and down and and Silvia Baraldini would have screamed, 'Don't let them bury us remained in Lexington to se rve their down there.' Someone else screamed, entire sentences had it not been for 'We won't.' We knew it was going to Susan's parents, Bell a and .Manny be underground. It's one thing to Rosenberg, a nd their friends - Holl y­ know and read, it's another thing to wood producers once on the blacklist, see and experience. Left to right: Silvia Baraldini, Susan Rosenberg and Alejandrina Torres in the art dealers, theatre critics, jo urnali sts. " We stood at the electronically High Security Unit at Lexington Prison. Its isolation and sensory deprivation were ' You have to show that these people controlled metal gate under the eye patterned on Stammheim, where the Baader-Meinhof Gang was held were not in jail beca use they were o ut of one of 11 surveillance cameras. for money or because · they were drug An unidentified man had ordered us She turns up the coll ar or her pale blue crimes a nd were judged to be the poten­ addicts; in fact that's the thing they placed in restraints while we walked pri son uni form. 'Susan always loved to tial subjects of rescue attempts. fought,' says Ma nny Rosenberg, a from one end of the basement to have style: her mother had said. The effects of small-group isola ti on retired dentist who practised in El Ba r­ the other. The lights were neon, flu- I nside Susan counsels Aids patients. within a control unit are well-docu­ rio, the Puerto Rica n nei ghbourhood of orescent, burning and bright and She looks as if she has Aids herself. mented: Rosenberg, Torres and Ba ra l­ Ha rl em. The Rosenbergs maintain that everything was snow-white - walls, Her mother says she cannot eat the dini suffered the expected pathologica l the women held in Lexington (and floors, ceilings. There was no sound prison food . A lawyer says she has disorders, which included loss of con­ many others) a re political prisoners. except the humming of the lights anorcxia; refusing food is her o nl y centrati on, headaches, hallucinati ons, The Lexington control unit was c10scd and nothing stirred in the air. Ale- means of control in a situa tion which emotional disturbance, dizziness a nd down because of the intervention of jandrina said, 'It's a white tomb, a has stripped her of a ll power. She dis­ digestive problems. Aleja ndrina Torres Amnesty International a nd the embar­ white sepulchre.' I nodded and whis- erectl y raises a li st - the old salute. had a heart attack and Susan Rosen­ rassment to the American government ered '~s Sta111mheim.'-' ________ For nearly two years, between 1986 berg lost a dramatic amount of we ight. of tbe pri son being cited by Mikhail "For nearly three months we were and 1988, she a nd two other women, 'She was so emaciated when she came Gorbachov, at the 1988 Geneva Sum­ the only prisoners there. We were Aleja ndrina Torres and Silvia Baraldini, o ut of Lexi ngton she looked as if she'd mit, as an example of human rights informed that we were permanently were held in the Hi gh Security Unit at come out of Dachau,' her mother says. abuses in the United States. designated to the High Security Unit, Lexington Federal Prison, Kentucky. The effect on Silvia Baraldini, now In thc Forties, Bell a Roscnberg was expected to serve our entire sen- The HS U never ho used more than held in the New York Correcti onal blackli sted from her job as it story edi­ tences of 35 and 58 years there. seven women during the time it was Institute, was even more serious. For tor for Embassy Pictures (t he lirst inde­ We were on constant display. It got open. Its philosophy was that of small li ve months she asked for a medical pendent studio). The Rosenbergs' so bad that officers would bring their group isola ti on, In the pattern of examination; when granted, it revealed friends are the old Left, men a nd wives and children to tour the unit. A Stammheim, the West German prison cancer of the uterus. ' I had my opera­ women who survived some form .01' group of high school students came. in whi ch the Baader-Meinhof Gang was ti on inside the prison because, accord­ McCarthyism. Silvia came from a We made a sign that read, 'Free all incarcerated a nd where some of them ing to them, r was too dangerous to be wealthy, politically liberal Itali a n family political prisoners in US prisons - committed suicide. taken to a hospital outside,' she says. with a hi story of resistance to Fascism. stop human rights abuses' and we In the underground unit at Lexington There was no pathology la b. They She moved when she was 15 to New would display it whenever we heard the wa ll s, ceiling and Ooor were painted removed my uterus but beca use they York, where her father, who was a spe­ a tour coming. One day a man gloss white to stimulate se nsory depri­ couldn't take any slides they had to cialist in aviation a nd foreign trade, toured the unit. He had an Irish va ti on. There was 24-hour video sur­ come back six days later, after the dis­ worked for the ltalian Embassy. During accent. As he came on vei ll ance, including a camera trained on eased uterus had been sent to the Mayo the Sixties, she a nd Susan were acti ve in the cell block he said, 'So the showers, whi ch had no curtains. No Clinic for a nalys is, a nd remove every­ the a nti-war movement. The Seventies this is the dead wing.' natural li ght or ve ntila ti on ever found thing else - my ovari es, tubcs a nd was the time of COINTELPRO, the SUSAN ROSENBERG its way in thro ugh the heavy screens lymph nodes. It's a hard experience for FBI's notorious counter-intelligence over the windows which prevented pris­ all women, but it's a very hard experi­ programme designed to inliltrate a nd In America, it is easier for journalists to oners from seeing o utside. Whenever ence to go thro ugh alone. There was no destroy the Bl ack Pa nthers and other gel into prisons than into factories. the inmates left the o utdoor exercise one apart from a nurse who came in milita nt organi sati ons. ' I was conscio us Arter an I D check, a stroll through the yard they were strip-searched. For a one ni ght a nd asked me if I wanted to that the American government would Fri skem metal detector, a quick pat three-month period they were woken ta lk about it. The surgeon's attitude stop at nothing to defeat its oppositi on, sea rch, yo u a re in . The DC County Jail , every ho ur. All their activities, includ­ was that I was a certain age a nd I was however small, and that this pattern a kind of public ho usi ng project for ing their conversa ti ons a nd their moods going to be in prison for the rest of my was built in ,' Silvia Ba raldini says. 'At the black population of Wa hington, we re monitored a nd noted. Initia ll y, no life a nd he couldn't understand why I some point I realised I wasn't interested resembles, from the o utside, the corpo­ books other than approved ones, was so upset. Something that is inex tri­ in changing a tiny bit here and a tiny rate headquarters of a building society, mainly li ght weight novels, we re allowed ca bl y ti ed to your identity as a woman bit there, but the whole thing.' set in la ndscaped greenery next to a and no visits of a ny kind, including is taken away from you, and in my cir­ Susan a nd Silvia met and became hospital. It is a jail run by blacks for those from lawyers, were permitted.