When we visited this abandoned prison in September 2020, it was firmly sealed off. We couldn’t find any way inside. We also met a man in the surrounding area who told us that the cameras covering the grounds were still active and that the police regularly patrolled the site. According to him, people had already been arrested for attempting to gain unauthorized access to the facility.
The electrical cabinet opposite the prison’s main entrance was still powered, as the deep humming noise clearly indicated. So the claim about the active cameras didn’t seem all that far-fetched.
We therefore decided not to take any chances and to return at a more suitable opportunity.
Whether the timing was any better or not, we had no idea when we found ourselves standing in front of the prison walls again about eight months later. The electrical cabinet was still humming, and there still appeared to be no way in. Nothing seemed to have changed.
So we walked once around the outer perimeter and enjoyed the short walk in the beautiful sunshine.
I don’t remember what made me do it, but on our way back to the car, I gave the large sliding gate a good pull – and, much to our surprise, it opened without any resistance!
Now we had a problem.
We had already been on site for quite some time and had no idea whether the cameras were still active or whether the police might already be on their way. There was also the possibility that security personnel were currently patrolling the prison and had simply left the gate open – which would have meant a serious risk of finding ourselves unable to leave if the gate was locked again.
The latter seemed relatively unlikely, though, as there wasn’t a single vehicle anywhere on the entire site apart from our own.
But there was no way we could pass up this unexpected opportunity.
Without going back to get any of our other equipment, we started what could best be described as a quick, tactical-style exploration. Our plan was simple: just our phones for taking pictures, a quick run through the buildings, back out through the hopefully still-open gate, and then get away as quickly as possible.
And that’s exactly what we did.
We moved really fast and certainly missed quite a few potential photo opportunities – but we made it. There wasn’t actually all that much to see anyway. As the prison was relatively modern, the interior was fairly sterile and functional, and most of the rooms were almost completely empty.
In a way, the place itself helped us keep our visit within a very tight time frame.
But the lack of photo opportunities and the time pressure certainly didn’t diminish the value of our exploration. For one thing, you don’t get the chance to see the inside of a prison all that often. But what really made this visit special was the sheer luck of finding that gate open – followed by such a spontaneous and unplanned exploration.
It is definitely one of those stories we will keep telling for years to come.
To find out more about the history and to check out all the photos from this place, click the button below.
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