Cover -- Half title -- If the Walls Could Speak -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Dramatis Personae -- Introduction -- 1. War and the Penitentiary System -- 2. On the Threshold: Arrest and Interrogation -- 3. Learning Oneâ#x80;#x99;s Cell, Learning Oneself -- 4. Prison Relationships: On Love, Trust, and Hostilities in a Prison Cell -- 5. Boredom and Emptiness, or the Flow of Life in Confinement -- Conclusion -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography
Summary
If the Walls Could Speak focuses on the lives of women in prison in postwar communist Poland and how they took on different roles and personalities to protect themselves and create a semblance of normality, despite abuses and prison confinement, and reveals how life in a Stalinist prison adds to our understanding of coercion and resistance under totalitarian regimes