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* Page 2 of 16 * beings, since they are deprived of what is specifically human: the relationship with other human beings and with the whole planet. A prisoners personal indentity and decision abilities are deeply undermined. In concentration camps - as Primo Levi wrote - psychological death occurred before biological death. The whole set of humiliating torsions that a prisoner undergoes in a total institution is still at work even when the experience of seclusion is ended. The long black shadow of the confining institution follows whoever has been confined there. Primo Levi and Bruno Bettelheim committed suicide many years after leaving the concentration camps. A deadly outcome of this type occurs more often than one would think.
All this is the result of two factors: the relationship that the single person has established with his/her own confining experience and the impact he or she will undergo when facing society's reactions. When entering a total institution, a prisoner is submitted to deadly torsions, but once he is out he will have to face social re-torsions (the term in Italian means retaliation): society's stigmatization, as well as what one might call the annoyance complex. Forget about it, let it go, try to adapt to the new world you are in. This is what people keep repeating. And many friends of ours, who have just come out of prison, keep hearing the same old story: Forget, forget.
There is another element resulting from the long black shadow of a total institution: a sense of double reality. What people experience in total institutions is so powerful and radical, that once you are out you can no longer tell real life from dreams. Suddenly, during everyday life, the madhouse, the concentration camp, the prison are present as true realities. In a book by Jorge Semprun, Writing or Living, this double reality experience is well described. After Primo Levi's suicide, Semprun becomes more and more concerned