Milada Horáková

[pieter]

Milada Horáková



Milada Horáková (née Králová, 25 December 1901 – 27 June 1950) was a Czech politician. She was a victim of judicial murder committed by the communist party on fabricated charges of conspiracy and treason. The verdict of her trial was annulled in 1968, and she was fully rehabilitated in the 1990s and posthumously received the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1st Class) and Order of the White Double Cross (1st Class).

Early life

Dr Horáková was born Milada Králová in Prague. At the age of 17, in the last year of the First World War, she was expelled from school for participating in an anti-war demonstration. She nevertheless completed her secondary education in newly-formed Czechoslovakia and went on to study law at Charles University, graduating in 1926. From 1927 to 1940 she was employed in the social welfare department of the Prague city authority. In addition to focusing on issues of social justice, Horáková also became a prominent campaigner for the equal status of women. She was also active in the Czechoslovak Red Cross. In 1929 she joined the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party which, despite the similarity in names, was a strong opponent of German National Socialism.

Horáková married her husband Bohuslav Horák in 1927. Their daughter, Jana, was born in 1933.

Wartime resistance

After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, Horáková became active in the underground resistance movement. Together with her husband, she was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo in 1940, in her case because of her pre-war political activity. She was sent to the concentration camp at Terezín and then to various prisons in Germany. In the summer of 1944, Horáková appeared before a court in Dresden. Although the prosecution demanded the death penalty, she was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment. She was released from detention in Bavaria in April 1945 by advancing United States forces in the closing stages of the Second World War.

Political activity

Following the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945, Horáková returned to Prague and joined the leadership of the re-constituted Czechoslovak National Socialist Party, becoming a member of the Provisional National Assembly. In 1946, she won a seat in the elected National Assembly representing the region of České Budějovice in southern Bohemia. Her political activities again focussed on the role of women in society and also on the preservation of Czechoslovakia's democratic institutions. Shortly after the Communist coup in February 1948, she resigned in protest from the parliament. Unlike many of her political associates, Horáková chose not to leave Czechoslovakia for the West, and continued to be politically active in Prague. On 27 September 1949, she was arrested and accused of being the leader of an alleged plot to overthrow the Communist regime.

Trial and execution



Before facing trial, Horáková and her co-defendants were subjected to intensive interrogation by the StB, the Czechoslovak state security organ, using both physical and psychological torture. She was accused of leading a conspiracy to commit treason and espionage at the behest of the United States, Great Britain, France and Yugoslavia. Evidence of the alleged conspiracy included Horáková's presence at a meeting of political figures from the National Socialist, Social Democrat and People's parties, in September 1948, held to discuss their response to the new political situation in Czechoslovakia. She was also accused of maintaining contacts with Czechoslovak political figures in exile in the West.

The trial of Horáková and twelve of her colleagues began on 31 May 1950. It was intended to be a show trial, like those in the Soviet Great Purges of the 1930s. It was supervised by Soviet advisors and accompanied by a public campaign, organised by the Communist authorities, demanding the death penalty for the accused. The State's prosecutors were led by Dr. Josef Urválek and included Ludmila Brožová-Polednová.[9][10] The trial proceedings were carefully orchestrated with confessions of guilt secured from the accused, though a recording of the event, discovered in 2005, revealed Horáková's courageous defence of her political ideals. Invoking the values of Czechoslovakia's democratic presidents, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Beneš, she declared that "no-one in this country has to be made to die or be imprisoned for their beliefs."

Milada Horáková was sentenced to death, along with three co-defendants (Jan Buchal, Oldřich Pecl, and Záviš Kalandra), on 8 June 1950. Many prominent figures in the West, notably Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt, petitioned for her life, but the sentences were confirmed. She was executed by hanging in Prague's Pankrác Prison on 27 June 1950; at the age of 48. Her reported last words were (in translation): "I have lost this fight but I leave with honour. I love this country, I love this nation, strive for their wellbeing. I depart without rancour towards you. I wish you, I wish you..."

Following the execution, Horáková's body was cremated at Strašnice Crematorium, but her ashes were not returned to her family. Their whereabouts are unknown.

[pieter]

Milada Horáková speaking at the Stalinist Czechoslovakian trail against her before her execution

[pieter]

[pieter]

Letter to Mother-in-law

My Dear Mother Horakova,

I kiss your hands—Mother of seven sorrows. I am sure you don’t know how often I thought about you, how often I stood in front of you asking your forgiveness, for I know I am guilty of many wrongs toward you. You are a model of sacrifice and patience, with a heart overflowing with goodness. What all came over you, and how little did the sun of happiness shine in your life! You, the embodiment of service, of service to others, in your modesty did not even notice that you were only giving, that you were giving your self along with all that care. You never asked what the others were bringing you. You were a private [i.e., soldier] of love, who only fought for the happiness of others and was not even awarded a medal for bravery. And it was and is so necessary in your life, so that you could again stand on your feet and fight for a better life, not for yourself, but for others.

This is the second time that in my heart I am asking your forgiveness. The first time it was in the fortress casemates of Terezin, almost on the threshold of certain destruction, that I realized that I did not know how to love you enough. And it was not for reasons stemming from you—I was spiritually so poor that I could not perceive that special tone of the keyboard of your character. And yet one could hear it so well. I had my ears closed by pride, jealousy and selfishness. You, dear mother, gave me from the small bundle of your personal happiness the most valuable gem, your only son Bohuslav. And you wanted nothing in return, only a little personal recognition and my permission for you to enjoy and adorn yourself with that gem. And in my young, self-assured pride, in my thoughtless competition of young, easily victorious womanhood, I was so selfish that I did not even want to let you have that little joy which you wanted for yourself. I began to compete where there was no reason to compete, for you did not want to deprive me of Bohuslav's love And so, during all the twenty-three years of my life with Bohuslav, I somehow remained distant from you, maminko. It is a great shame, and I am telling myself this for the second time, that it took such a great trial from God for that realization, and it was not only a loss for you, it was for me also. Your dear son also suffered because of our distant relationship, for he loved both of us fervently, although each of us differently. His beautiful heart was so rich in goodness and love that I really should have been glad for you to have all he wanted to give you. And just at the time before my arrest, when Father Horak died, I was jealous and unkind to you. I thereby hurt you and Bohuslav. It was very wrong, and I am very much ashamed of myself I was so proud and naively selfish. I felt uncomfortable because when Father Horak was dying, the two of you stayed alone with your sorrow, you did not ask me to be with you. And why should you have called me? Should I not have asked you to let me be with you? Should I not have been with you as a matter of course, just as Bohuslav always was with me when I went through difficult times . . . without being asked? Maminko, this is my great pain with regard to you and Bohuslav, and I have to confess it to you today, when there must not be forgiveness; your kind soul already has forgiven me. . . .

In my mind I also have been talking to Father Horak. I was glad that his death came when he was happy and comfortable, while you have to carry a cross to Golgotha. I asked him also to forgive me in his eternal abode, and I recognized that his criticisms of me were partly justified. It is true that he often wronged and hurt me, but it seems that he felt that I have certain traits of character which will cost his son sue much pain and sorrow. . . . And I reacted to his correct instinct with proud and self-assured rejection, and I became obstinate when he was guilty of a wrong toward me. I needed even more humility, and therefore this test had to come. But it is tragic that you and Bohuslav again have to suffer for my correct comprehension of things. But I know that you can get up again after falling under the weight of the cross. I know that you will be victorious over your Golgotha, for you have the most powerful faith and shield. Maminko, I have it too. . . . Therefore you perhaps more than anybody else will believe, if I say in do the words of the psalm: And though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me. You have no idea how pleased I was when my legal representative informed me that the pastor of the Protestant Congregation expressed his willingness to accompany me and to strengthen me spiritually in the hours which are awaiting me. The authorities will be asked for their permission, but even if they should not give it, the very fact that he wanted to do so strengthens and comforts me; please give him my deep thanks. I know that you are praying for me and that you prayed especially today. Continue to pray, my prayers are with you. I asked to be at least given the Kralicka Bible and I was promised it. Of course, I don't know if they have anything like that here. Maminko, in your sorrow in which we both are alone, all of our, my, jealousies have vanished. I think I know how hard it is for you, and because you know what my and ci Bohuslav's love was like, you know that today my heart suffers no less than yours. And yet we have not lost him. Whether he is alive anywhere, or perhaps dead, in his heart he has not stopped loving both of us, each in a different way-and I am really not jealous any more that he loves both of us. I have one request: spend a lot of time with Janinka. You know how much she loves you, and perhaps you will find your son in her.

Letter to Daughter Jana

My only little girl Jana, God blessed my life as a woman with you. As your father wrote in the poem from a German prison, God gave you to us because he loved us. Apart from your father's magic, amazing love you were the greatest gift I received from fate. However, Providence planned my life in such a way that I could not give you nearly all that my mind and my heart had prepared for you. The reason was not that I loved you little; I love you just as purely and fervently as other mothers love their children. But I understood that my task here in the world was to do you good . . . by seeing to it that life becomes better, and that all children can live well. And therefore . . . we often had to be apart for a long time. It is now already for the second time that Fate has torn us apart. Don't be frightened and sad because I am not coming back any more. Learn, my child, to look at life early as a serious matter. Life is hard, it does not pamper anybody, and for every time it strokes you it gives you ten blows. Become accustomed to that soon, but don't let it defeat you. Decide to fight. Have courage and clear goals and you will win over life. Much is still unclear to your young mind, and I don't have time left to explain to you things you would still like to ask me. One day, when you grow up, you will wonder and wonder, why your mother who loved you and whose greatest gift you were, managed her life so strangely. Perhaps then you will find the right solution to this problem, perhaps a better one than I could give you today myself. Of course, you will only be able to solve it correctly and truthfully by knowing very, very much. Not only from books, but from people; learn from everybody, no matter how unimportant! Go through the world with open eyes, and listen not only to your own pains and interests, but also to the pains, interests and longings of others. Don't ever think of anything as none of your business. No, everything must interest you, and you should reflect about everything, compare, compose individual phenomena. Man doesn't live in the world alone; in that there is great happiness, but also a tremendous responsibility. That obligation is first of all in not being and not acting exclusive, but rather merging with the needs and the goals of others. This does not mean to be lost in [the multitude, but it is] to know that I am part of all, and to bring one's best into that community. If you do that, you will succeed in contributing to the common goals of human society. Be more aware of one principle than I have been: approach everything in life constructively—beware of unnecessary negation—I am not saying all negation, because I believe that one should resist evil. But in order to be a truly positive person in all circumstances, one has to learn how to distinguish real gold from tinsel. It is hard, because tinsel sometimes glitters so dazzlingly. I confess, my child, that often in my life I was dazzled by glitter. And sometimes it even shone so falsely, that one dropped pure gold from one's hand and reached for, or ran after, false gold. You know that to organize one's scale of values well means to know not only oneself well, to be firm in the analysis of one's character, but mainly to know the others, to know as much of the world as possible, its past, present, and future development. Well, in short, to know, to understand. Not to close one's eats before anything and for no reason-not even to shut out the thoughts and opinions of anybody who stepped on my toes, or even wounded me deeply. Examine, think, criticize, yes, mainly criticize yourself don't be ashamed to admit a truth you have come to realize, even if you proclaimed the opposite a little while ago; don't become obstinate about your opinions, but when you come to consider something right, then be so definite that you can fight and die for it. As Wolker said, death is not bad. Just avoid gradual dying which is what happens when one suddenly finds oneself apart from the real life of the others. You have to put down your roots where fate determined for you to live. You have to find your own way. Look for it independently, don't let anything turn you away from it, not even the memory of your mother and father. If you really love them, you won't hurt them by seeing them critically—just don't go on a road which is wrong, dishonest and does not harmonize with life. I have changed my mind many times, rearranged many values, but, what was left as an essential value, without which I cannot imagine my life, is the freedom of my conscience. I would like you, my little girl, to think about whether I was right.

Another value is work. I don't know which to assign the first place and which the second. . . . Learn to love work! Any work, but one you have to know really and thoroughly. Then don't be afraid of any thing, and things will turn out well for you.

And don't forget about love in your life. I am not only thinking of the red blossom which one day will bloom in your heart, and you, if fate favors you, will find a similar one in the heart of another person with whose road yours will merge. I am thinking of love without which one cannot live happily. And don't ever crumble love—learn to give it whole and really. And learn to love precisely those who encourage love so little—then you won't usually make a mistake. My little girl Jana, when you will be choosing for whom your maiden heart shall burn and to whom to really give yourself remember your father.

I don't know if you will meet with such luck as I, I don't know if you will meet such a beautiful human being, but choose your ideal close to him. Perhaps you, my little one, have already begun to understand, and now perhaps you understand to the point of pain what we have lost in him. What I find hardest to bear is that I am also guilty of that loss.

Be conscious of the great love and sacrifice Pepik and Veruska are bringing you. You not only have to be grateful to them . . . you must help them build your common happiness positively, constructively. Always want to give them more for the good they do for you. Then perhaps you will be able to come to terms with their gentle goodness.

I heard from my legal representative that you are doing well in school, and that you want to continue ... I was very pleased. But even if you would one day have to leave school and to work for your livelihood, don't stop learning and studying. If you really want to, you will reach your goal. I would have liked for you to become a medical doctor—you remember that we talked about it. Of course you will decide yourself and circumstances will, too. But if you stand one day in the traditional alma mater and carry home from graduation not only your doctor's diploma, but also the real ability to bring people relief as a doctor—then, my little girl . . . your mother will be immensely pleased…But your mother would only be . . . truly happy, no matter where you stand, whether at the operating table, at the . . . lathe, at your child's cradle or at the work table in your household, if you will do your work skillfully, honestly, happily and with your whole being. Then you will be successful in it. Don't be demanding in life, but have high goals. They are not exclusive of each other, for what I call demanding are those selfish notions and needs. Restrict them yourself. Realize that in view of the disaster and sorrow which happened to you, Vera, Pepicek, grandmother and grandfather . . . and many others will try to give you what they have and what they cannot afford. You should not only not ask them for it, but learn to be modest. If you become used to it, you will not be unhappy because of material things you don't have. You don't know how free one feels if one trains oneself in modesty . . . how he/she gets a head start over against the feeble and by how much one is safer and stronger. I really tried this out on myself And, if you can thus double your strength, you can set yourself courageous, high goals . . . Read much, and study languages. You will thereby broaden your life and multiply its content. There was a time in my life when I read voraciously, and then again times when work did not permit me to take a single book in my hand, apart from professional literature. That was a shame. Here in recent months I have been reading a lot, even books which probably would not interest me outside, but it is a big and important task to read everything valuable, or at least much that is. I shall write down for you at the end of this letter what I have read in recent months. I am sure you will think of me when you will be reading it.

And now also something for your body. I am glad that you are engaged in sports. Just do it systematically. I think that there should be rhythmic exercises, and if you have time, also some good, systematic gymnastics. And those quarter hours every morning! Believe me finally that it would save you a lot of annoyance about unfavorable proportions of your waist, if you could really do it. It is also good for the training of your will and perseverance. Also take care of your complexion regularly-I do not mean makeup, God forbid, but healthy daily care. And love your neck and feet as you do your face and lips. A brush has to be your good friend, every day, and not only for your hands and feet; use it on every little bit of your skin. Salicyl alcohol and Fennydin, that is enough for beauty, and then air and sun. But about that you will find better advisors than I am.

Your photograph showed me your new hairdo; it looks good, but isn't it a shame [to hide] your nice forehead? And that lady in the ball gown! Really, you looked lovely, but your mother's eye noticed one fault, which may be due to the way you were placed on the photograph—wasn't the neck opening a little deep for your sixteen years? I am sorry I did not see the photo of your new winter coat. Did you use the muff from your aunt as a fur collar? Don't primp, but whenever possible, dress carefully and neatly. And don't wear shoes until they arc run down at the heel! Are you wearing innersoles? And how is your thyroid gland? These questions don't, of course, require an answer, they are only meant as your mother's reminders.

In Leipzig in prison I read a book—the letters of Maria Theresa [The Austrian Empress] to her daughter Marie Antoinette. I was very much impressed with how this ruler showed herself to be practical and feminine in her advice to her daughter. It was a German original, and I don't remember the name of the author. If you ever see that book, remember that I made up my mind at that time that I would also write you such letters about my experiences and advice. Unfortunately I did not get beyond good intentions.

Janinko, please take good care of Grandfather Kral and Grandmother Horakova. Their old hearts now need the most consolation. Visit them often and let them tell you about your father's and mother's youth, so that you can preserve it in your mind for your children. In that way an individual becomes immortal, and we shall continue in you and in the others of your blood.

And one more thing—music. I believe that you will show your gratitude to Grandfather Horak for the piano which he gave you by practicing honestly, and that you will succeed in what Pepik wants so much, in accompanying him when he plays the violin or the viola. Please, do him that favor. I know that it would mean a lot to him, and it would be beautiful. And when you can play well together, play me the aria from Martha :6 "My rose, you bloom alone there on the hillside," and then: "Sleep my little prince" by Mozart, and then your father's [favorite] largo: " Under your window" by Chopin. You will play it for me, won't you? I shall always be listening to you.

Just one more thing: Choose your friends carefully. Among other things one is also very much determined by the people with whom one associates. Therefore choose very carefully. Be careful in every-thing and listen to the opinions of others about your girlfriends without being told. I shall never forget your charming letter (today I can tell you) which you once in the evening pinned to my pillow, to apologize when I caught you for the first time at the gate in the company of a girl and a boy. You explained to me at that time why it is necessary to have a gang. Have your gang, little girl, but of good and clean young people. And compete with each other in everything good. Only please don't confuse young people's springtime infatuation with real love. Do you understand me? If you don't, aunt Vera will help you explain what I meant. And so, my only young daughter, little girl Jana, new life, my hope, my future forgiveness, live! Grasp life with both hands! Until my last breath I shall pray for your happiness, my dear child!

I kiss your hair, eyes and mouth, I stroke you and hold you in my arms (I really held you so little.) I shall always be with you. I am concluding by copying from memory the poem which your father composed for you in jail in 1940.

Letter to husband

My dearest husband,

Until the 27th of September of last year, all of the almost 26 year’s that we loved each other this verse of your poem counted for us. Then things changed so suddenly and tragically. I am writing to you as I am to all the others and I don't even know if you arc alive, and if it is even possible for you to read these words. . . . That is the greatest pain of my heart, that . . . I don't have any news about you, not even sad ones, and perhaps only a few hours of my life remain. It is the first time in the long years of our life together that I face the test which fate assigned to me without you. I am so alone. and I do not understand anything about this tragedy. Perhaps it will become clear to me when our souls meet again. I only know and feel one thing: that with your great love it is not possible that you left me. But however that may be, my dear I want to tell you: I already wrote you one letter on the threshold between life and death—in 1944 after the verdict of the Volksgericht in Dresden. I am happy that I do not have to revoke any of it, not a word. On the contrary, the happiness of our great, enchanted love has become more solid when we met again after our return from jail . . . You were the greatest love of my life—through you I have encountered so many heights of human feeling, crystalline like a jewel, that this unusual, uncommon earthly love between two people could not end in an ordinary way. You know it, I don't need to tell you about it. Do you remember that quiet evening last August, on a Saturday, when the two of us sat together in the kitchen, when the rain was murmuring in the leaves of the trees in the garden of our apartment? We were drinking tea, I was talking to you and you were listening? . . . I was confessing something to you from my heart. It seems that I, such a tough person, started to cry. You were silent, you kissed me and only looked at me. I told you that I know that I often sin against the goodness of your heart, I told you what you have meant to me, I asked you to forgive me if I neglected you because of my other interests. I spoke to you about strength, and about my genuine love for you. Was the discussion of that night which ended with you putting me gently on the bed, was that discussion perhaps a fateful anticipation of this letter which will never reach you? It seems to me that that is so. And therefore, even if you should not read these lines, I am certain that you know what I want to say to you. You know: I was your lover more than your wife, for a wife I lacked the necessary feeling for the exclusiveness of her tasks. I had my wings spread, and you did not keep me from flying even at the expense of your personal happiness. I had in you a perfect husband and pal who never indiscreetly pushed his way into the depth of my soul. You were so self-controlled in everything, you always stood above situations when the two of us were concerned. You are the only person in the world of whom I could believe that he understands me. I would like to be convinced that I can count on you to understand me even today. But I do not understand one thing: Why did you leave our child? In my question there is no reproach, my dear, it is only astonishment about something incomprehensible. I am all yours, as you know me, I remained faithful to our love, to you and to myself If I leave before you do, it is only to wait for you patiently. Our love will even overcome the physical change, and it is a consolation to me that I shall always be able to be close to you spiritually. When the last hour comes, I won't be without you, you will stand next to me in the words of your poems which I shall be saying to myself. . . . [There follows a long poem which is a confession of love to her. She ends her letter to him:] I kiss you, my husband, I press your hands, pal. If you are alive, I wish you a long and happy life. Solve your life's problems so as to be able to live fully . . . Your M.

Letters to family

[At 2.30 in the morning of June 27, 1950, the day Milada was executed, she wrote once more to all her loved ones, ending with the words:]

and you my wandering, dear, only, beautiful husband! I feel that you are standing before me. Now we hold hands once more, firmly. The birds are waking up, it is becoming light. I go with my head held high. One also has to know how to lose. That is no disgrace. An enemy also does not lose honor if he is truthful and honorable. One falls in battle; what is life other than struggle? Be well. I am yours, only yours, Milada.

[Her final letter, written to her family just before her execution:]

Don't feel sorry for me! I lived a beautiful life. I accept my punishment with resignation and submit to it humbly. My conscience is clear and I hope and believe and pray that I shall also pass the test of the highest court, of God.

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

A year before her death

[pieter]

[pieter]

[Jaga]

Pieter,

thank you for showing this story of amazing woman who was persecuted just because she was not for soviet-type of government. I watched some of her final words. She sounds very strong and respectful. It is so sad that people - men and women had to die for their beliefs. Additionally, she was for women rights. Good that her husband and daughter were able to escape. How good that some tapes with her own words are saved and the movie is made about it.
Is it available online?

[pieter]

Jaga,

Thanks for your reply. I watched the movie yesterday on Netflix. I thought about similar situations in Stalinist Poland (1945-1954) where brave people who resisted both Nazism and Stalinism (communism) followed the same fate of Milada Horáková. I thought about the cases of Witold Pilecki (1901 – 1948), and brigadier general and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armia Krajowa, Emil August Fieldorf (1895 – 1953) and others. For Milada Horáková it was worse, because she was a woman, a mother, wife and aunt and sister. Anna Roszkiewicz-Litwiniwiczowa, a former soldier of the Home Army, shared the experiences of Milada Horáková, Witold Pilecki, Emil August Fieldorf and other Polish, Czech, Slovak and Hungarian victims of Stalinism in the late forties and early fifties in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary of that time. In the War many of these Czech, Polish and Slovak resistance fighters were tortured by the German and Austrian Gestapo officers and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) agents in occupied Poland and Czechoslovakia in Gestapo prisons, SD headquarters or German/Austrian Nazi concentrationcamps. After the war these people were arrested, photographed (registered), interrogated and tortured again not by German or Austrian nazi's, but by compatriots who were Communists in Stalinist Czechoslovakia and Poland.


Auschwitz concentration camp photos of Pilecki (1941)


Witold Pilecki photo's from the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa prison, the Mokotow prison in Warsaw in 1947.


Brigadier general Emil August Fieldorf photo's from the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa prison, the Mokotow prison in Warsaw in 1950.

Arrests and execution of brigadier general Emil August Fieldorf (1895 – 1953)


Polish brigadier general Emil August Fieldorf

On 7 March 1945, Brigadier general (Armia Krajowa) Emil August Fieldorf was arrested by the Soviet NKVD in the town of Milanówek. Initially, he was misidentified under the name Walenty Gdanicki and sent to a forced labour camp in the Ural Mountains. Released in 1947, he returned to new Poland ruled by the communist Polish Workers' Party government and the increasingly repressive Ministry of Public Security. He settled in Biała Podlaska under his assumed name and did not return to underground activities. Moving between Warsaw and Kraków, he eventually settled in Łódź.

The government, which was persecuting former resistance members loyal to the London-based government-in-exile, offered an amnesty to them, in 1948. Not knowing that the amnesty was a sham, Fieldorf outed himself to the authorities. He was then placed under investigatory arrest in Warsaw. In prison he refused to collaborate with the Communist security services, even under torture. General Fieldorf's brutal interrogations were personally supervised by Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego colonel Józef Różański. Kazimierz Gorski, Polish secret police, the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa interrogator, testified in 1997: "Józef Różański would stop by frequently during many of my interrogations of general August Fieldorf, and he would have conversations with him on many subjects. The prosecuting attorney Benjamin Wajsblech would show up frequently as well, and would, on many occasions, give me verbal instructions. I prepared a decision to refuse the general's [defense] evidence materials. I wrote it under the dictation of Wajsblech. I didn't decide as to whom, and how, I should interrogate".

Fieldorf was accused by prosecutor Helena Wolińska-Brus of being a "fascist-Hitlerite criminal" and having ordered an execution of Soviet partisans while serving in the AK. After a kangaroo court trial, he was sentenced to death on 16 April 1952 by the presiding judge Maria Gurowska. An appeal to a higher court failed, and the family's plea for a pardon was denied by then the communist leader Bolesław Bierut who refused to grant clemency. The sentence was carried out, by hanging, on 24 February 1953 at 3:00 pm in the infamous Mokotów Prison in Warsaw.


Stalinist Prosecutor Helena Wolińska-Brus called brigadier general Emil August Fieldorf a "fascist-Hitlerite criminal"


The presiding judge Maria Gurowska sentenced general August Fieldorf to death

The Communist Prosecuting Attorney Wiktor Gattner described General Fieldorf's last moments as follows:

"I asked the condemned if he had any wishes. Fieldorf responded: 'Please notify my family'. I stated that his family would be notified [...] The condemned persistently looked straight into my eyes. He stood erect. No one was holding him. He made an appearance of a very strong man. One would almost admire his composure amidst such dramatic events. He neither screamed, nor made any gestures. I said: Carry out [the execution]! The executioner and one of the guards approached the condemned […] I went to see the warden afterwards, and then by my own hand I prepared the protocol of the execution."

General Fieldorf's body was never returned to his family, and remains buried in an unknown location to this day. In 2009, an article in a British newspaper suggested that Fieldorf was buried in a mass grave in a Warsaw cemetery, together with the remains of 248 other murdered Polish non-communists.

Thus Jaga, I watched the movie about Milada Horáková, with in the back of my mind the memories about the attrocities and simiular show trails, persecution, torturte and execution by the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (the Department of Security) or the Ministry of Public Security (Polish: Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego) in Stalinist Poland in the years 1945–1954. The work of sadistic Stalinist creatures like Stanisław Radkiewicz (1903 – 1987), Grzegorz Korczyński (1915 -1971), Mieczysław Mietkowski (1903 - 1990), Adam Teofil Humer (1917/1908 - 2001), Wacław Komar (1909 - 1972), Julian Kole (1908 - 1998), Jakub Berman (1901 – 1984), Anatol Fejgin (1909 – 2002), Roman Romkowski (1907 – 1965), Józef Różański (1907 – 1981), Helena Wolińska-Brus (1919 – 2008), Józef Światło (1915 – 1994), Julia Brystiger (1902 - 1975), Salomon Morel (1919 – 2007), Henryk Palka (1908 - 1981), Julian Polan-Haraschin (1912 - 1984), Julian Konar (1920 - 2008), Leon Rubinsztein (1912 - 1961), Mieczysław Moczar (1913 – 1986), Józef Czaplicki (1911 - 1985), Józef Bik (1922 - 2008) and Piotr Śmietański (1899 – 1950), nicknamed by the inmates as the "Butcher of the Mokotow Prison".


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Stanisław Radkiewicz. As head of the Polish communist secret police (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa or UB) between 1944 and 1954, he was one of the chief organisers of Stalinist terror in Poland


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Grzegorz Korczyński, general of the Polish Peoples Army and vice minister of the Ministry of Public Security


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Mieczysław Mietkowski


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Adam Teofil Humer


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Wacław Komar


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Polan Haraschin


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Jakub Berman


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Anatol Fejgin


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Roman Romkowski


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Józef Różański


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Helena Wolińska-Brus


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Józef Światło


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Julia Brystiger. She was also known as Julia Brystygier, Bristiger, Brustiger, Briestiger, Brystygierowa, Bristigierowa, and by her nicknames – given by the victims of torture: Luna, Bloody Luna, Daria, Ksenia, and Maria. The nickname Bloody Luna was a direct reference of her Gestapo-like methods during interrogations.


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Salomon Morel. Salomon Morel (November 15, 1919 – February 14, 2007) was an officer in the Ministry of Public Security in the Polish People's Republic. Morel was as a commander of concentration camps run by the NKVD and Polish communist authorities until 1956.


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Mieczysław Moczar. Immediately following World War II, Moczar became the secret police chief in Łódź, but was dismissed from his position in 1952 on charges of "nationalist deviation." In December 1964, he was named the Minister of the Interior, a position he retained until 1968. A popular joke in Poland from the time period illustrates how the average citizen viewed Moczar. "What do you get when you take away the 'czar' from Moczar?" (Czar is pronounced like Char and means charm in Polish). The answer is "Mo," which were the initials for the Polish police, "Milicja Obywatelska".


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Józef Czaplicki


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Józef Bik


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa member Piotr Śmietański, executioner at Mokotów Prison, nicknamed by the inmates as the "Butcher of the Mokotow Prison".


Citroën Traction Avant, a car commonly used by the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa. The Citroën Traction Avant was a range of mostly 4-door saloons and executive cars, with four or six-cylinder engines, produced by the French manufacturer Citroën from 1934 to 1957.

In the Polish official archives, there is an instruction of the Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego (1945–1954) written by Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Interrogator Julia Brystiger (1902 - 1975) to her subordinates, about the purpose of torture:

"In fact, the Polish intelligentsia as such is against the Communist system and basically, it is impossible to re-educate it. All that remains is to liquidate it. However, since we must not repeat the mistake of the Russians after the 1917 revolution, when all intelligentsia members were exterminated, and the country did not develop correctly afterwards, we have to create such a system of terror and pressure that the members of the intelligentsia would not dare to be politically active."


Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Interrogator and officer Julia Brystiger

One of the victims of the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa was the Home Army member Danuta Helena Siedzikówna (3 September 1928 – 28 August 1946) (nom de guerre: Inka; underground name: Danuta Obuchowicz) whom was captured, tortured and sentenced to death at the age of 17 by the communist authorities. Danuta was arrested by the UB again on 20 July 1946 in Gdańsk. While in prison she was tortured and beaten but refused to give up any information about her contacts in the anti-communist underground and their meeting points. Danuta's brutal interrogations were personally supervised by the Head of the Investigations Department at the Voivodeship Office for Public Security, (WUBP), (Polish Secret Police) in Gdańsk, Józef Bik (1922 - 2008).


Home Army member and Urząd Bezpieczeństwa victim Danuta Helena Siedzikówna

On March 1, 1951, the Soviet-controlled Communist Polish secret police, Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (UB), carried out the execution of seven members of the 4th Headquarters of the anti-Communist organization Wolność i Niezawisłość (WiN) in the Mokotów Prison in Warsaw. All those executed were members of WiN who, during World War II, took an active part in anti-Nazi resistance. The executed men were: Armia Krajowa (Home Army) Major Łukasz Ciepliński (26 November 1913 – 1 March 1951), Armia Krajowa (Home Army) Colonel Karol Chmiel (1911–1951), Armia Krajowa (Home Army) Major Adam Lazarowicz (1902 – 1951), Armia Krajowa (Home Army) Captain Józef Rzepka (1913 -1951), Armia Krajowa (Home Army) Captain Józef Batory (1914 - 1951), Armia Krajowa (Home Army) and Freedom and Independence (Polish: Zrzeszenie Wolność i Niezawisłość, or WiN) commander Mieczysław Kawalec (1916 - 1951) and Armia Krajowa (Home Army) Captain and Freedom and Independence (Polish: Zrzeszenie Wolność i Niezawisłość, or WiN) captain Franciszek Błażej (1907 -1951).


Armia Krajowa (Home Army) Major Łukasz Ciepliński

Other victims of the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (UB) terror campaing of arrests, torture and excecutions were:

- Commandant of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) Hieronim Dekutowski (1918 - 1949). Executed on March 7, 1949, in the infamous Mokotów Prison in Warsaw. According to witnesses, even though he was 30 at the moment of death, he looked like an elderly man, without teeth and nails, with grey hair, broken ribs, nose and hands. ‘We shall never surrender!’ he yelled sending his last message to his fellow prisoners. Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (UB) Interrogators had tortured and beaten him during his investigation. The show trial of Dekutowski and his soldiers took place on November 3, 1948. To humiliate the accused, they were dressed in Wehrmacht uniforms. On November 15, the court presided over by Judge Józef Badecki (1908 - 1982) who had previously sentenced Witold Pilecki to death, sentenced Dekutowski to seven deaths.


Hieronim Dekutowski

- Bolesław Kontrym (1898 – 1953), also known by his Armia Krajowa codenames Żmudzin, Biały, Bielski and Cichocki, was a Polish Army officer, a Home Army soldier, participant in the Warsaw Uprising and organizer of underground secret-police force Cichociemni. During World War II, Kontrym served in the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade and was one of the Cichociemni. He also fought with distinction in the Warsaw Uprising. After the war, he was arrested by the Polish Security Service and executed for anti-Communist resistance probably on 2 or 20 January 1953.


Bolesław Kontrym

- The Polish resistance leader, a member of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), Witold Pilecki (1901 – 1948) was interrogated by by Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Interrogators Colonel Józef Różański and lieutenants S. Łyszkowski, W. Krawczyński, J. Kroszel, Tadeusz Słowianek, Eugeniusz Chimczak, and Stefan Alaborski, men who were infamous for their savagery. A very bad role in the Stalinist show trial against Witold Pilecki on 3 March 1948 was played by his former fellow Auschwitz concetration camp inmate Józef Cyrankiewicz, a former Polish socialist of the Polska Partia Socjalistyczna (PPS), who had become a Communist and Stalinist member of the PZPR Polish communist Party and Prime Minister of Poland from 18 March 1954 until 23 December 1970. Witold Pilecki was excecuted before Józef Cyrankiewicz was prime minister, but in the time of Witold Pilecki execution, 25 May 1948, Cyrankiewicz had a very influential position in the PZPR party. Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (UB) Interrogator Józef Różański (1907 – 1981) personally administered torture to Witold Pilecki, one of the most famous "Cursed soldiers" and the only individual who willingly went to Auschwitz Camp. Pilecki revealed no sensitive information and was executed on May 25, 1948 at Mokotów Prison by Sergeant Smietanski, the "Butcher". Różański was personally involved in torturing and killing dozens of opponents of the Polish People's Republic (PRL), including anti-communists. and "Cursed soldiers". He gained notoriety as one of the most brutal secret police Officers in Warsaw. Józef Różański was arrested in 1953 – at the end of the Stalinist period in Poland – and charged with torturing innocent prisoners, including Polish United Workers' Party members. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison on 23 December 1955. In July 1956, the Supreme Court reopened his case due to improprieties discovered in the original investigation. On 11 November 1957 (charged along with co-defendant Anatol Fejgin), he was again sentenced by the lower court this time to 15 years in prison. He was released in 1964, having served seven years.


Witold Pilecki in the Stalinist court of the Polish Peoples republic

- 1st Lieutenant Jan Rodowicz (Szare Szeregi)(7 March 1923 – 7 January 1949), alias "Anoda", was a scout, soldier of the Grey Ranks, the Home Army and of the Armed Forces' Delegation, lieutenant. On 24 December 1948, Rodowicz was arrested by officers of the Ministry of Public Security, who were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Wiktor Herer, Head of the Department IV at the Department V of the Ministry of Public Security. Rodowicz died on 7 January 1949 during a brutal investigation at the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa headquarters at Koszykowa Street. According to the prosecutor and the Security Office, the reason for his death was a suicide jump from the window on the fourth floor of the building. It is possible that he was thrown out of it, or murdered in some other circumstances. On 12 January 1949, his body was secretly transported to a funeral facility and then anonymously buried at the Powązki Cemetery. His family was not notified of his death until March 1. On March 16, the family was informed by the gravedigger about the burial place and exhumed the body. The coffin was placed in a family grave at Stare Powązki.


Jan Rodowicz after arrest by the Ministry of Public Security (Polish: Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego)

- Feliks Selmanowicz "Zagończyk" ( pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feliks_Selmanowicz )


Feliks Selmanowicz

- Zygmunt Szendzielarz (12 March 1910 – 8 February 1951), the commander of the Polish 5th Wilno Brigade of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), nom de guerre "Łupaszka", was executed in the notorious Mokotów Prison as one of anti-communist so-called Cursed soldiers following the Soviet takeover of Poland at the end of World War II.

After several years underground, Szendzielarz was arrested by the UB on June 28, 1948, in Osielec near Nowy Targ. After more than two years of brutal interrogation and torture in Warsaw's Mokotów Prison he was sentenced to death on November 2, 1950 by the Soviet-controlled court martial in Warsaw. Zygmunt Szendzielarz was executed on February 8, 1951, together with several other Home Army soldiers. Szendzielarz was 40 years old. His body was buried in an undisclosed location. During a 2013 exhumation Szendzielarz's remains were recovered and identified as one of roughly 250 bodies buried in a mass grave at the so-called Meadow at Warsaw's Powązki Military Cemetery.


Zygmunt Szendzielarz

- Stanisław Sojczyński (nom de guerre "Warszyc") (March 30, 1910 in Rzejowice – February 19, 1947 in Łódź) was a captain in the Polish Army and in the Home Army and later the creator and leader of Underground Polish Army (KWP). The Konspiracyjne Wojsko Polskie (Underground Polish Army, KWP) was a Polish paramilitary organization, which existed from April 1945 to as late as 1954, whose purpose was to fight Communist-controlled government of Poland as well as the NKVD. It was most active in the Łódź Voivodeship, but also in the neighboring provinces of northern Upper Silesia, eastern Poznań and western Kielce.

KWP's creator and leader (since June 1946) was Captain Stanisław Sojczyński (nom de guerre "Warszyc"). Under his leadership, the organization promoted self-defense from Red Army units and liquidation of the most zealous servants of the regime, but also KWP was engaged in requisitions of necessary means.

In August 1945 KWP was strengthened by hundreds of members of the disbanded Home Army, who decided to continue fighting for free Poland. In its heyday, the organization had some 3000 armed members, most of them hid in the forests. It also published its own newspaper W swietle prawdy (In the light of truth).

In the spring of 1946 skirmishes between KWP and Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (UB) troops were frequent. In the night of April 19/20 of that year, KWP's unit under Jan Rogolka (nom de guerre "Grot") temporarily captured the town of Radomsko, releasing 57 persons incarcerated in local prison by the UB. Next day, a battle between UB and KWP took place in a nearby forest.

On June 28, 1946, due to treason, Sojczynski was captured by the UB. Soon afterwards, KWP's structures in Upper Silesia were destroyed, but the organization did not cease to exist. However, with new leader, Jerzy Jasinski (nom de guerre "Janusz"), it did not regain its previous strength. At the beginning of 1947 most commanders were arrested, soon afterwards the government declared amnesty and hundreds of underground soldiers took advantage of it. In November of that year another leader, Jan Malolepszy ("Murat") was arrested.

Remains of KWP continued the hopeless fight and remained in forests south of Łódź until 1954.


Stanisław Sojczyński

- Corporal Józef Franczak (17 March 1918 – 21 October 1963) was a soldier of the Polish Army, Armia Krajowa World War II resistance, and last of the cursed soldiers – members of the militant anti-communist resistance in Poland. He used codenames Lalek (best known), Laluś, Laleczka, Guściowa, and fake name Józef Babiński. He was a resistance fighter for 24 out of 45 years of his life.

Józef Franczak was born in the Polish village of Kozice Górne, some 30 kilometers from Lublin. After attending a school for the gendarmerie in Grudziądz, he was stationed as a soldier of the Polish Army in Równe (then in Poland, now Rivne, Ukraine). He was captured during the Soviet invasion of Poland, but escaped and joined one of the first Polish resistance organizations, the Związek Walki Zbrojnej, which later became the Armia Krajowa.

In August 1944 he was conscripted into the Polish Second Army. In 1945, having witnessed some of his Home Army colleagues being executed by the communist Polish government at the Uroczysko Baran killing fields, he defected from the Second Army, and hid for a few months in different locations, such as Sopot and Łódź, using the alias of Józef Baginski. Subsequently he returned to the area of Lublin, and joined the militant anti-communist resistance in Poland, colloquially known as the cursed soldiers. His first unit was led by Hieronim Dekutowski (nom de guerre "Zapora"). Captured and arrested by the security forces (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa) in June 1946, he managed to kill four guards and make his escape along with some others.

At the beginning of 1947, he took part in actions against the law enforcement agencies and the military of the communist authorities, particularly the milicja, and the functionaries of the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa and their informers. Later in 1947 he joined a unit led by a Wolność i Niezawisłość officer, Zdzisław Broński (nom de guerre "Uskok"), which operated northeast of Lublin. In 1949 he personally executed a former resistance member who had betrayed Broński. Then for several years he led a group bent on executing traitors and informers, who had joined with those he perceived to be the enemies of Poland.

In 1948, during a botched bank robbery, his cadre was intercepted by government forces and destroyed; from that time Franczak worked alone, as more and more of his former colleagues were killed, arrested, or simply gave up – especially after the amnesty of April 27, 1956. For the next few years he would be one of the most wanted people in the People's Republic of Poland. He hid near the village of Piaski, and in the area of Krasnystaw, Chełm and the area surrounding Lublin. It has been estimated that some 200 people were involved in giving him various types of aid. Those supporting Franczak exposed themselves to great risk and retribution, since he was regarded as a 'dangerous criminal', by the government. They threatened to punish anyone who helped him with several years of imprisonment.

The Lublin field office of the Polish secret police, the Służba Bezpieczeństwa, had already begun a plan to capture or kill him as early as November 1951, under the codename "Pożar" ("Fire"). In time over 100 different people were involved in the effort to locate and eliminate him. Agents of the SB installed bugs in several houses in the villages around Lublin. In May 1957, the first such device was implanted in the house that belonged to Czeslawa Franczak, Jozef's sister. Soon afterwards, bugs were installed in the house of another sister, Celina Mazur, as well as elsewhere.

Finally, in 1963, he was betrayed by a relative of his mistress, Danuta Mazur. Stanisław Mazur informed the secret police of Franczak's whereabouts and his planned meeting with Danuta, who was also the mother of his child. On 21 October 1963, 35 functionaries of a ZOMO (paramilitary riot police) unit surrounded a barn in Majdan Kozic Górnych, the village where Franczak was in hiding. They demanded his surrender; Franczak presented himself as a local peasant, but after having been asked about identity documents, he opened fire and was mortally wounded in the ensuing firefight. After an autopsy, Franczak's body (without its head), was returned to his family. He was buried in the cemetery in Piaski Wielkie.


Józef Franczak

Kazimierz Moczarski


The well-known Polish writer and journalist, officer of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) Kazimierz Moczarski

The well-known Polish writer and journalist, officer of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) (noms de guerre: Borsuk, Grawer, Maurycy, and Rafał; active in anti-Nazi resistance) Kazimierz Moczarski (1907 – 1975), interrogated by the Polish Stalinist secret police, Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, from January 9, 1949 till June 6, 1951, described 49 different types of torture he endured. Beatings included truncheon blows to bridge of the nose, salivary glands, chin, shoulder blades, bare feet and toes (particularly painful), heels (ten blows each foot, several times a day), cigarette burns on lips and eyelids and burning of fingers. Sleep deprivation, resulting in near-madness – meant standing upright in a narrow cell for seven to nine days with frequent blows to the face – a hallucinatory method called by the interrogators "Zakopane". General Romkowski told him on November 30, 1948, that he personally requested this "sheer hell".

Beginning March 2, 1949, as means of psychological torture, Moczarski was locked up for nine months (or 225 days) with two German SS-men: SS-Untersturmführer of BdS Krakau Gustav Schielke and SS-Gruppenführer Jürgen Stroop. Stroop was responsible for the annihilation of the Warsaw Ghetto after the 1943 uprising. His crimes resulted in the death of over 50,000 people. A committed Nazi, arrogant and unremitting until the very end, he was put on trial on July 18, 1951 for the war crimes committed in Poland and executed on 6 March 1952.

Sources:

- Wikipedia English (anything I -Pieter- could find about Urząd Bezpieczeństwa.)

www.academia.edu/36188913/Jerzy_Bednarek_-_Powiatowy_Urz%C4%85d_Bezpiecze%C5%84stwa_Publicznego_w_K%C4%99pnie_1945-1956_
books.google.nl/books?id=YVJFXO4rR50C&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=Urz%C4%85d+Bezpiecze%C5%84stwa+the+Polish+stalinist+police&source=bl&ots=2I4nL_sCsY&sig=ACfU3U3tRXMGrpE920E3Nw9xsE4k96WOpw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbyI_Hjc3pAhUDqaQKHVW_AaQQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Urz%C4%85d%20Bezpiecze%C5%84stwa%20the%20Polish%20stalinist%20police&f=false

dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10161/11991/Batya%20Knebel%20GLS%20Master%27s%20Project%202016%20Revisiting%20Jewish%20Role%20in%20the%20UB.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

www.jstor.org/stable/10.5612/slavicreview.73.1.0085?seq=1

books.google.nl/books?id=ekh4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA593&lpg=PA593&dq=Urz%C4%85d+Bezpiecze%C5%84stwa+1945-1954&source=bl&ots=jH88MPmdPx&sig=ACfU3U3pd4n6olWoXmPuQOC5XHLf4FBV7w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjsiPOqss3pAhUFy6QKHaAmBAo4HhDoATAMegQIChAB#v=onepage&q=Urz%C4%85d%20Bezpiecze%C5%84stwa%201945-1954&f=false

[pieter]

Logo of the Czechoslovakian communist secret police which existed from 30 June 1945 until 1 February 1990

Státní bezpečnost/Štátna bezpečnosť

State Security (Czech: Státní bezpečnost, Slovak: Štátna bezpečnosť) or StB / ŠtB, was the plainclothes secret police force in communist Czechoslovakia from 1945 to its dissolution in 1990. Serving as an intelligence and counter-intelligence agency, it dealt with any activity that was considered opposition to the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the state.

History

From its establishment on June 30, 1945, the StB was controlled by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The Party used the StB as an instrument of power and repression; State Security spied on and intimidated political opponents of the Party and forged false criminal evidence against them, facilitating the communists' rise to power in 1948. Even before Czechoslovakia became a communist state, the StB obtained forced confessions by means of torture, including the use of psychoactive drug, blackmail and kidnapping. After the coup d'état of 1948, these practices developed under the tutelage of Soviet advisers. Other common practices included telephone tapping, permanent monitoring of apartments, intercepting private mail, house searches, surveillance, and arrests and indictment for so-called "subversion of the republic". After the coup, the StB conducted Operation Border Stone to capture citizens who attempted to defect and cross the Iron Curtain.

StB was the main supporter of the Red Brigades, an Italian far-left militant organization. In cooperation with the Palestine Liberation Organization, the StB conducted logistic support and training for Red Brigades in PLO training camps in North Africa and Syria.

The StB's part in the fall of the regime in 1989 remains uncertain. The reported murder of a student by police during a peaceful demonstration in November 1989 was the catalyst for wider public support and further demonstrations, leading to the overthrow of the communist regime. According to StB agent Ludvík Zifčák [cs], he was used to impersonate a fictitious dead student, Martin Šmíd. However, in 1992, the Czechoslovak parliamentary commission for investigation of events of November 17, 1989 has ruled out Zifčák's testimony, stating that "the role of former StB lieutenant L. Zifčák was only marginal, without any connection to critical events and without any active effort to influence these events. Investigation of related circumstances has indisputably proved that L. Zifčák's testimony that attributes a key role in November's events to himself is based on facts, which are either technically impossible and unfeasible, or contradict actions of persons mentioned by him, which aimed to completely different goals."

State Security was dissolved on February 1, 1990. The current intelligence agency of the Czech Republic is the Security Information Service. Former employees and associates (informers) of the StB are currently banned from taking certain jobs, such as legislators or police officers.

The Act on Lawlessness of the Communist Regime and on Resistance Against It states that the StB, as an organisation based on the ideology of the Communist Party, "aimed to suppress human rights and democracy through its activities" and thus based on a criminal ideology.

Organization within the Czechoslovak government


Officers of the StB arrest Czechoslovak citizens in 1972

The State Security was a part of the National Security Corps (Czech: Sbor národní bezpečnosti, SNB; Slovak: Zbor národnej bezpečnosti, ZNB) along with Public Security (Czech: Veřejná bezpečnost, VB; Slovak: Verejná bezpečnosť, VB) – a uniformed force that performed standard police duties. Both forces worked at regional and district levels, supervised by the Ministries of the Interior of the Czech and Slovak Socialist Republics, but operationally directed by the federal Ministry of Interior.


Prague Through the Lens of the Státní bezpečnost/Štátna bezpečnosť in the 1970s and 1980s.


Prague Through the Lens of the Státní bezpečnost/Štátna bezpečnosť in the 1970s and 1980s.

[pieter]

May 23, 2020 22:34:19 GMT -7 Jaga said:

Pieter,

thank you for showing this story of amazing woman who was persecuted just because she was not for soviet-type of government. I watched some of her final words. She sounds very strong and respectful. It is so sad that people - men and women had to die for their beliefs. Additionally, she was for women rights. Good that her husband and daughter were able to escape. How good that some tapes with her own words are saved and the movie is made about it.
Is it available online?

Jaga,

Milada Horáková was an examplenary woman who underwent both Nazi torture and Stalinist torture, lies made up against her, and she stood for her ideals. Before facing trial in 1949, Horáková and her co-defendants were subjected to intensive interrogation by the StB, the Czechoslovak state security organ, using both physical and psychological torture.

Horáková's courageous defence of her political ideals was an example to others. Invoking the values of Czechoslovakia's democratic presidents, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Beneš, she declared that "no-one in this country has to be made to die or be imprisoned for their beliefs."

I hope Jaga that Milada Horáková was known to Charta 77 members, and that Polish dissidents of the KOR (Komitet Obrony Robotników) and Solidarność knew about her case. I hope that Milada Horáková might have been an inspiration and example for people like Jacek Kuroń, Anna Walentynowicz, Bronisław Geremek, Aniela Steinsbergowa, Adam Michnik, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Lech Wałęsa, Antoni Macierewicz, Piotr Naimski, Jerzy Andrzejewski and Stanisław Barańczak in Poland, who resisted against the Communist regome during the late sixties, seventies and eighties.

Cheers,
Pieter

[Jaga]

Milada looks and sounds like a very strong, intelligent and good woman. Too bad that she was unable to survive the ordeal. Her story was not very well known in Poland since we had so many ghosts in our own cabinet at that time. I hope that the main Solidarity members knew about her. I am glad that these stories are becoming more known.

[pieter]

Jaga,

That ghosts in your own cabinet at that time are here in this thread in the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (UB) part of this thread. They are in that the stories of the victims of the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa: Witold Pilecki, Danuta Helena Siedzikówna, brigadier general Emil August Fieldorf, Anna Roszkiewicz-Litwiniwiczowa, Bolesław Kontrym, Hieronim Dekutowski, Kazimierz Moczarski, Łukasz Ciepliński, Józef Franczak, Stanisław Sojczyński, Zygmunt Szendzielarz, Feliks Selmanowicz, Jan Rodowicz, Karol Chmiel, Adam Lazarowicz, Józef Rzepka, Józef Batory, Mieczysław Kawalec, Franciszek Błażej and many others. These are the ghosts in the Polish cabinet od the brutal and inhumane Stalinist era of Poland, 1945-1954. That Stalinist era followed up another brutal and inhumane era of the German/Austrian Nazi occupation of Poland and the Sovjet occupation of Eastern Poland (September 1939 - Juni 1941).

Jaga, when I read about the humiliation, torture for months or years and the methods used during these mean, vicious, brutal and sadistic Urząd Bezpieczeństwa I got chilled to the bone. Not only out of sadness, empathy and thus feeling sorry for these Polish victims of fellow Stalinist Polish beasts (both Poles and jews), but also because of the similarities I saw with the Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst methods of torture used in Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium and other countries and about which I read in eye witnesses. Some of the stories of the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa torture and interogation methods and Stalinist show trials were exactly the same as the Nazi show trials at the end of the Second World war by the (Nazi) Volksgerichtshof and it's Sondergerichte with vicious people like Judge Roland Freisler, and the Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst which acted as the Police forces and the public prosecutors, interogators, torturers and executioners.

Especially from the Zakopane method of the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa I got chilled to the bone. Why? I will tell you. This story, exact the same story of the hallucinatory "Zakopane" method of the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa interrogators of Sleep deprivation, resulting in near-madness – due to standing upright in a narrow cell for seven to nine days with frequent blows to the face – I heard in Auschwitz I, the main camp (Stammlager), in the room of the Gestapo prison inside that Stammlager on April 2004. The "Zakopane" method of the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa interrogators was used by the Gestapo before in Auschwitz I, the main camp (Stammlager). The Gestapo used the Zakopane method probably all over occupied Europe in hundreds or thousands of prisons and camps. Did the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa learn the method from captured Gestapo or Sicherheitsdienst (SD), German or Austrian SS officers (The Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst were SS organisations)? Or did the Gestapo or Sicherheitsdienst learned the "Zakopane" method from the NKVD as well? In the early stages of the war there were a series of joint Gestapo/NKVD conferences in Nazi occupied Kraków (1939-1940) ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo%E2%80%93NKVD_conferences ). The Polish guide who was very rational, unsentimental and un-emotional gave exact information about destruction numbers (the industrial killing of 1,1 million people over there and in Auschwitz Birkenau a few kilometers further). The Polish guide was very good and professional. He told about the crual method in the Gestapo prison, we saw the wall in front of the wall of that room, a wall of about 1,5 meter high and about 2 or 3 meters long. There was about half a meter space between the wall of the room and the smaller wall of 1,5 meter high and about 2 or 3 meters long. There I heard that Polish prisoners had to stand there for a week without food or water. The same, exactly the same method the Polish Stalinist Urząd Bezpieczeństwa officers used against their Polish (former Home Army member) prisoners. It gave me a strange feeling and thoughts. Did the officers of the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa studied Gestapo Nazi torture techniques? Did they interogated Gestapo officers about their methods. They used exactly the same method the Gestapo used.

Cheers,
Pieter