“With regard to the statute of limitations, it might be interesting to consider whether Levin's actions can be deemed to be war crimes. The South African govt. itself declared itself to be at war. There are no limitations on war crimes under international law.”
Gordon, it is time to tell this story. Are you OK with me adding bits like this?
I have something of a burning desire to unburden myself of Greefswald, perhaps in the way that the SADF unburdened itself of me, although with fewer substances.
Perhaps I have been inspired to write by the incredible writings of a fellow survivor of Greefswald, Gordon Torr. You all know him, he is our brother, or perhaps the depth of his gravitas and compassion makes him more like a father. Try reading him at https://myenglishtraits.substack.com/. He starts of one on his posts with (and Gordon, please forgive me if I trample your intellectual property rights by using this quote) this:
“It’s a weird thing but we can’t remember what we were remembering at any stage of our lives without also remembering the things we were remembering at the time. So it’s difficult to separate what was going on around you from what was going around in your head.”
This was particularly true at the end of five very full months at Greefswald. There was a lot to remember the day we were discharged. And there was a lot to remember every day of Greeswald, not only the immediate past of 42 days in pretty much solitary confinement in DB, punctuated with Chris P. cutting his wrists in the cell next to me. I had spent many a night simply tapping on the wall, with Chris responding. We developed no code, simply a method of passing some humanity back and forth in those cold winter nights, when the morning washing of our pigpans (farkpanne) required us to break the thick ice on the 40 gallon drum that had the cold detergent free washup water.
The 42 days had been preceded by the 12 days in 1 Mil psychiatric ward, where Colonel Levin (and I just deleted Dr.) would sometimes express his anger with someone by prescribing a Lumbar puncture to whoever had enraged him, and he was easy to enrage. “During a spinal tap (lumbar puncture), a healthcare provider withdraws cerebrospinal fluid. Some people develop spinal headaches after a spinal tap, but the overall procedure risks are low.” The poor bastard who got this treatment from Levin was in severe pain afterwards, and the lumbar puncture seemed to aggravate his already extremely unstable mental state. He took off out the window and went awol, probably in his ward outfit which if I remember has stripes modeled on Auschwitz. He spent the next few days in a straight jacket. It was the first time I had seen that horrible restraint used. It is difficult to remember all of it since there were quite a lot of substances involved, some prescribed, some not. It was the “some not” that had me ejected and sent to Detention for 42 days. Levin simply went apeshit on me, and it is very emotionally difficult to describe what happened in his office, other than the usual fondling of my penis and balls. Let’s just say for now that it was something like the pinnacle of dejection, the Mariana Trench of emotional wreckage.
I would not repeat that level of emotional destruction and shame and self pity and tears and burning hatred and begging and pleading and snivelling like a dog until Levin instructed the Toppie to take me to the secret place near the Wald where no one could witness the torture, and to break me. As I remember this, and it is all starting to flow in a goosebump inducing torrent of horror, poor Chris P., with his healed wrists, but still with a deep burning desire to depart this mortal coil by his own hand, was with me.
Just the two of us and the Toppie in the secret place with two telephone poles, saturated with tar (I love that smell on a hot day). It was a hot day. We started with both poles, no warm up, but we did not last very long with one on each end of both poles, tucked in under our arms, running, jumping, and doing squats. It must have been more than 40 degrees C. It was burning hot. There was no water to be had and it went on and on. Finally Chris simply gave up and collapsed. The Toppie ignored him, and left me with a single pole.
On and on and on. Round an round in that secret place, until finally gritting my teeth, with an animal determination and bloodymindedness that has stayed with me to this day, was not enough, and my body failed my determination to never breakdown again. But there I was, begging and pleading like a dog again. But I’m getting distracted from being discharged.
In 1974 we were discharged from the SADF. Simply driven in Bedfords from Greefswald to somewhere, and placed on a train with our balsaks. For some inexplicable reason the corporal lost control of us in some small town and we were allowed to go to the store to buy “refreshments” for the journey. We, or at least myself and a few close friends certainly needed it. The days leading up to discharge had been excessively harsh, starting with the route march on the day before Christmas.
The route march, as explained to us, was to ensure that we were in sufficient post route march pain to ensure that there were no energy or inclination for any crazy stuff on Christmas.
Before describing the train ride, fueled with “refreshments” from the store, and the drug store next to the liquor store, I want to describe the route march a little more.
I had become, in Greefswald, the resident “chemical specialist”, with my primary reference being the MIMS, the Monthly Index of Medical Specialities. What a delightful book. Soft cover, and fairly thin (not like the DSM-5( Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR)). So easy to conceal. Who knew at that time that I would find myself in the pages of the DSM-5, in quite a few sections. Maybe we will explore that later.
I will take advice from any one of the possible readers of this regarding statute of limitations and the legal consequences of going to confession without a priest. I have much to confess, not all of it legal. But then what was being done to me at Greefswald was not exactly legal. Remind me to tell of the dispensary in the medical facility.
The side effects of Symmetril are “confusion, disorientation, depersonalization, fear, delirium, hallucinations, psychotic reactions”. That sounded pretty much manageable and could be useful. Noting that “the lowest reported acute lethal dose was 1 gram. Because some patients have attempted suicide by overdosing with amantadine ” I prescribed the correct doses to a number of “colleagues” on that route march, Chris was always game to follow the expertise in medication that I gained at Greefswald. At least I learned something worthwhile, other than learning how to survive by grinding my teeth, which is getting messier by the year as I have them capped and recapped.
Marching 40km with a full pack in the December heat along the Limpopo river, depersonalized and hallucinating was better than marching in my own painful body. I was floating above myself, in a state without pain. How is it remotely possible that none of the Corporals noticed that we were so far out of it that the bodies they were talking to were responding with a person at the helm?
But I must take a break, and get legal advice on any further disclosures.
Let’s go back to that secret place and the poles next. The consequences of that torture (and there really is no other word for it) were dire. Next episode, pole PT.
And in that episode, I will repeat that level of emotional destruction and shame and self pity and tears and burning hatred and begging and pleading and snivelling like a dog. I will describe licking the mud off my torturer’s boots, desperate to stay alive with just a drop of moisture, and my shame.
Essential reading. Peter Fox cuts to the bone.
Brilliant, Peter. As I said, if we don't tell our truths they will tell their versions for us.
According to Robert Ensor:
“With regard to the statute of limitations, it might be interesting to consider whether Levin's actions can be deemed to be war crimes. The South African govt. itself declared itself to be at war. There are no limitations on war crimes under international law.”
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/war-crimes.shtml
United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect
Gordon, it is time to tell this story. Are you OK with me adding bits like this?
I have something of a burning desire to unburden myself of Greefswald, perhaps in the way that the SADF unburdened itself of me, although with fewer substances.
Perhaps I have been inspired to write by the incredible writings of a fellow survivor of Greefswald, Gordon Torr. You all know him, he is our brother, or perhaps the depth of his gravitas and compassion makes him more like a father. Try reading him at https://myenglishtraits.substack.com/. He starts of one on his posts with (and Gordon, please forgive me if I trample your intellectual property rights by using this quote) this:
“It’s a weird thing but we can’t remember what we were remembering at any stage of our lives without also remembering the things we were remembering at the time. So it’s difficult to separate what was going on around you from what was going around in your head.”
This was particularly true at the end of five very full months at Greefswald. There was a lot to remember the day we were discharged. And there was a lot to remember every day of Greeswald, not only the immediate past of 42 days in pretty much solitary confinement in DB, punctuated with Chris P. cutting his wrists in the cell next to me. I had spent many a night simply tapping on the wall, with Chris responding. We developed no code, simply a method of passing some humanity back and forth in those cold winter nights, when the morning washing of our pigpans (farkpanne) required us to break the thick ice on the 40 gallon drum that had the cold detergent free washup water.
The 42 days had been preceded by the 12 days in 1 Mil psychiatric ward, where Colonel Levin (and I just deleted Dr.) would sometimes express his anger with someone by prescribing a Lumbar puncture to whoever had enraged him, and he was easy to enrage. “During a spinal tap (lumbar puncture), a healthcare provider withdraws cerebrospinal fluid. Some people develop spinal headaches after a spinal tap, but the overall procedure risks are low.” The poor bastard who got this treatment from Levin was in severe pain afterwards, and the lumbar puncture seemed to aggravate his already extremely unstable mental state. He took off out the window and went awol, probably in his ward outfit which if I remember has stripes modeled on Auschwitz. He spent the next few days in a straight jacket. It was the first time I had seen that horrible restraint used. It is difficult to remember all of it since there were quite a lot of substances involved, some prescribed, some not. It was the “some not” that had me ejected and sent to Detention for 42 days. Levin simply went apeshit on me, and it is very emotionally difficult to describe what happened in his office, other than the usual fondling of my penis and balls. Let’s just say for now that it was something like the pinnacle of dejection, the Mariana Trench of emotional wreckage.
I would not repeat that level of emotional destruction and shame and self pity and tears and burning hatred and begging and pleading and snivelling like a dog until Levin instructed the Toppie to take me to the secret place near the Wald where no one could witness the torture, and to break me. As I remember this, and it is all starting to flow in a goosebump inducing torrent of horror, poor Chris P., with his healed wrists, but still with a deep burning desire to depart this mortal coil by his own hand, was with me.
Just the two of us and the Toppie in the secret place with two telephone poles, saturated with tar (I love that smell on a hot day). It was a hot day. We started with both poles, no warm up, but we did not last very long with one on each end of both poles, tucked in under our arms, running, jumping, and doing squats. It must have been more than 40 degrees C. It was burning hot. There was no water to be had and it went on and on. Finally Chris simply gave up and collapsed. The Toppie ignored him, and left me with a single pole.
On and on and on. Round an round in that secret place, until finally gritting my teeth, with an animal determination and bloodymindedness that has stayed with me to this day, was not enough, and my body failed my determination to never breakdown again. But there I was, begging and pleading like a dog again. But I’m getting distracted from being discharged.
In 1974 we were discharged from the SADF. Simply driven in Bedfords from Greefswald to somewhere, and placed on a train with our balsaks. For some inexplicable reason the corporal lost control of us in some small town and we were allowed to go to the store to buy “refreshments” for the journey. We, or at least myself and a few close friends certainly needed it. The days leading up to discharge had been excessively harsh, starting with the route march on the day before Christmas.
The route march, as explained to us, was to ensure that we were in sufficient post route march pain to ensure that there were no energy or inclination for any crazy stuff on Christmas.
Before describing the train ride, fueled with “refreshments” from the store, and the drug store next to the liquor store, I want to describe the route march a little more.
I had become, in Greefswald, the resident “chemical specialist”, with my primary reference being the MIMS, the Monthly Index of Medical Specialities. What a delightful book. Soft cover, and fairly thin (not like the DSM-5( Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR)). So easy to conceal. Who knew at that time that I would find myself in the pages of the DSM-5, in quite a few sections. Maybe we will explore that later.
My exploration of the MIMS had led to this:
https://www.rxlist.com/symmetrel-drug.htm#precautions
I will take advice from any one of the possible readers of this regarding statute of limitations and the legal consequences of going to confession without a priest. I have much to confess, not all of it legal. But then what was being done to me at Greefswald was not exactly legal. Remind me to tell of the dispensary in the medical facility.
The side effects of Symmetril are “confusion, disorientation, depersonalization, fear, delirium, hallucinations, psychotic reactions”. That sounded pretty much manageable and could be useful. Noting that “the lowest reported acute lethal dose was 1 gram. Because some patients have attempted suicide by overdosing with amantadine ” I prescribed the correct doses to a number of “colleagues” on that route march, Chris was always game to follow the expertise in medication that I gained at Greefswald. At least I learned something worthwhile, other than learning how to survive by grinding my teeth, which is getting messier by the year as I have them capped and recapped.
Marching 40km with a full pack in the December heat along the Limpopo river, depersonalized and hallucinating was better than marching in my own painful body. I was floating above myself, in a state without pain. How is it remotely possible that none of the Corporals noticed that we were so far out of it that the bodies they were talking to were responding with a person at the helm?
But I must take a break, and get legal advice on any further disclosures.
Let’s go back to that secret place and the poles next. The consequences of that torture (and there really is no other word for it) were dire. Next episode, pole PT.
And in that episode, I will repeat that level of emotional destruction and shame and self pity and tears and burning hatred and begging and pleading and snivelling like a dog. I will describe licking the mud off my torturer’s boots, desperate to stay alive with just a drop of moisture, and my shame.