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by
Stefania Tallei
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Those Condemned to Death
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We maintain correspondence with 350 prisoners condemned to death. The greater part are on the death rows of the United States, others are in the prisons of Russia (Siberia) where, however, all the death sentences have been commuted into life sentences. Others are in the prisons of African nations.
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Many of those condemned to death make explicit requests to write to people from all parts of the world. Correspondence is, in effect, the only free space in the lives of these persons.
Writing and receiving mail is like breaking the bars, to allow entrance for the words and love which comes from the outside, sometimes from very far away. This pen friendship means concern, dignity, affection and faithfulness.
Isolation and restlessness are common to all the death rows; they increase little by little as hope to survive diminishes. In this condition having a friend, someone who loves you and writes to you is like finding a treasure.
Under many aspects the inmates stories are stories of poverty, similar to those we may have come across in our neighbourhood.
Through correspondence with those condemned to death we have better understood what it means to live total segregation without even a thread of
hope. The greater part of them spend 23 hours a day in a cell whose space is limited to a bed and chair, in the absence of any intimacy, with bright lights on day and night. Some prisoners are illiterate or scarcely educated. There are persons who have learned to read and write during their detention. There are also those who are mentally handicapped.
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...Fifteen years ago, if I would have died under fire by some criminal, I would have died alone and without friends and no one, aside from my family, would have been preoccupied about my death. Now I know that I will not die alone and without friends, I know that, in addition to my family, I will die loved by others. Your family has to love you, they have no choice, but in friendship one can choose. Friends are chosen by one another because there is a bond, something they have in common, hidden within themselves. Perhaps we will never discover what it is, but it exists.
So it is, in conclusion, you are my friend, for some unknown reason. I thank you for this friendship. It is a blessing of life for someone with a past like my own to be able to say that he has true friends. It has helped be during the hardest thirteen years of my life. Thank you for being there for me. Thank you for being my friend. Thanks for the time of your life you have dedicated to me. Saying thank you, does not seem enough for me to express everything. Just know that your friendship has made all the difference.
With deep love,
D.
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From the letter of one condemned to death, written three days before his execution.
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