‘The Freedom of the Prisoner’ by Harald Poelchau

32-page manuscript book, written out in Chinese ink with gouache illustrations on Zerkall hammered paper with orange Zerkall endpapers and an off-white card cover with Nepalese printed paper jacket. Completed in August 2020

This essay by Harald Poelchau commemorating Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s time in Tegel Prison in 1944 is contained in a book of essays, I Knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

I was given a copy of Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship by my father when I travelled to South Africa during my gap year before starting university in 1974. Confronted as I was by the evils of the Apartheid system, Bonhoeffer’s principled opposition to the Nazis - and his ultimate sacrifice - made a profound impression on me.

After completing a number of smaller pieces during the Covid 19 lockdown, I felt ready to return to a more extensive project, and re-engaged with this text to remind myself of the more serious challenges, and the courage they engendered, which our elders have faced in recent history.