My Special Visit of Alcatraz

Hi Charlie !

This summer, I went to California, and my first step was San Francisco.

It was absolutely beautiful and I really liked these colorful houses and descending the hills by cable c ars (San Francisco is a giant Disneyland, trust me), even if it was less funny to climb them after that ! :D

I, of course, couldn’t miss Alcatraz, which is maybe the most famous prison of the world ! So one evening, we took the boat to Alcatraz (we also prayed not to sink because it’s absolutely F R E E Z I N G in SF so we had no chance to survive if we would have had to swim :,) ), and we stayed maybe 2 hours and a half on The Rock. 

I found the way this visite had been made was very special, and it actually stroke me. 

In fact, what really stroke me was the fact that it was made to make us feel compassion for the prisoners who were in Alcatraz. Right from the beginning, there was a big poster with two quotes of a prisoner. The first one was  “BREAK THE RULES YOU GO TO PRISON BREAK THE PRISON RULES AND YOU GO TO ALCATRAZ” (with capital letters), and the second was “In Alcatraz I wasn’t [name] anymore : I was the number [his number]” and a picture of this man. It was quite harsh right from the beginning, especially after having had an overview of all the abandoned buildings which were somehow gloomy (+ the fact that night was falling). 

Then they gave us audioguides in which the inmate who was quoted at the beginning was talking about his experience and daily life in Alcatraz, and we were free to visit the prison in the order we wanted. 

The main building was quite small, there were three or four narrow rows of tiny cells, on three floors (look at the picture I’ve put), and we were able to enter in some of them in the same the inmate was telling us some stories and facts that were as incredible as creepy : he told us how he tried to escape, by crawling into the kitchen conduits which apparently led to the sea, but he was discovered by the guardians. He also told us impressive escape attempts (search on internet, that’s really incredible), and some creepier stories of settling of scores in which some guardians died, killed by their own guns, as they had been stolen by some prisoners who were trying to escape. 

When we passed in front of the cell of a famous criminal, it was indicated… And I don’t know, there was a kind of obscene aura each time I touched the bars, or when I came in. That was really strange. 

But the most striking thing to me were the cells for mentally-ill inmates : imagine a kind of armored wall, with an armored door, and just 80cm later a row of thick bars in a space smaller that the normal cells. We could enter in each of these cells : inside, there was absolutely no light, inmates were in total darkness. The guy of the audioguide asked us to close our eyes and imagine the lives of prisoners in them. I remembered being all alone in one of them, and there was no one outside either, and I remembered myself feeling again this creepy aura. Honestly, I didn’t want to be locked up in those things AT ALL. 

At this precise moment I started to feel sad about those people, locked in those dark rooms for years and years, when we could see the city and normal life outside the building. But I also reminded myself that those people were sent to jail because they were criminals and they had killed many people, so they were here for a reason. I realized also the ambiguity of the visit : since the beginning, we were conveyed to embody inmates and live their daily routine in Alcatraz, so we were conveyed to feel how difficult it could be. 

Another moment that I’ll remember for a very long time is the moment where a woman simulated she was a police officer and she pulled several times a lever stock that closed/opened all the cells in the same time with a thunderous metallic sound that echoed in all the prison and even outside, exactly at the same hour they did it in the past. Again, that had something really gloomy that I couldn't explain... 

At the very end, there was a conference with a former prisoner (not of Alcatraz, as it isn’t a prison anymore) who came to talk about his experience and how he reintegrated a normal life, which was very interesting, because it really complexifies my vision of prisons, prisoners and reintegration…

To conclude, I would say that my visit was really touching and impressive.. It was very special and I really enjoyed it. 

And then, we left The Rock, which, in the dark of night, seemed more mysterious and obscure than ever…