I find the Stasi Jail affects me a lot because so much of it still stands and because of the way individuals were isolated for long periods of time. One of ways of attempted communication involved the toilet. The idea was to disable the flush so that the bowl did not refill with water. If there was no water in the pipes, then the pipes would act as a primitive sort of wave guide for sound waves and allow conversation. Water does transmit sound: you can hear underwater. However, I think that the dissipative viscous forces in the water would attenuate the sound. So you'd get clearer communication with no water there. The problem was that just as with social media, you couldn't be sure that the person on the other end was who they said they were. Our guide said he was arrested in 1984 at the age of 18 for trying to escape from the DDR. I was 18 in 1984...
