Methods and Techniques of Secret Police Investigations

"You are arrested" were the words that changed lives of tens of thousands of people in former Czechoslovakia. The words meant a complete turning point in their lives. After these words one fell into another world all of a sudden that included brutal interrogations by the secret police (StB). Trials and interrogations hardly ever took place without psychological and physical violence and terror[1]. Using cruel methods was indirectly recommended at meetings and trainings of secret police investigators. It even became a part of the criteria for their work evaluation. Investigators who were not meeting the required effects and did not use enough violence or did not use it with enough power, were considered weak and inefficient.

Why were there cruel and inhuman methods, where psychological compulsion and physical violence was used? Bohumil Doubek explains, "Since we had no convincing evidence or testimony, Karel Košťál[2] and I was told, that a sophisticated enemy and experienced spy does not leave any material or proof and we have to push him to confession. We were also told that these kinds of people are very obstinate and we cannot give them time to get ready for trials. The consultants were emphasizing the need to tire the person' s nerves out, make him sure that he has no chance to be saved and point out that confession can give him at least some kind of advantage."[3] 

The incarcerated were beaten in various ways. They suffered from sleep deprivation, they were forced to walk in their cells back and forth, often they did not get any food, and threatened that their wives, children, or friends would be arrested as well. However, there were also other, drastic methods of interrogations, from tying, hanging up, hitting the sensitive parts of body, to using electricity and faking executions[4]. Josef Kycka remembers this experience very well, "They came up to me. You know, I didn't wash there for three months, just wiping with a piece of cloth, you couldn't comb your hair. My hair was getting long, all glued together with oil...so they came to ask me whether I would like to take a bath. So I went. They twisted a towel around my head, leading me to the bathroom. There was a beautiful bathtub with clean, warm water. I couldn't wait, took my clothes off quickly, got inside and all of a sudden it started to get move. I cannot describe this well. My eyes were blinking, mouth was moving, arms and legs everywhere...I fell out of the bathtub, in each joint there was so much pain. They sent electricity into the tub. So I was washed for a long time this way." 

Women weren't spared from this inhuman treatment. Julie Hrušková remembers, "I went through one extremely hard interrogation when they would hit my head against the table, slide me around, push my body towards the closet, anything that would come up in their minds. I tried not to fall down. Finally a telephone saved me because they had to get to another arrest. The guard took me to Orlí, where they put me into solitary confinement.  In the early hours of morning I found out I was bleeding. 

I called for a doctor, but the secret police officers had no time to take me to the hospital like the prison doctor ordered them to do. I was pregnant with my American soldier. I was already in the third month and I aborted. They let me bleed for three days until total exhaustion set in. The whole ward of prison was rebelling, demanding someone help me. Finally one old guard helped me and on his own risk he transported me to the hospital in Brno. There they saved my life, but the child was dead."  The same story we can get from the investigation report of Vlasta Charvátova, who had such a brutal hearing that it lead to the loss of her baby, "I had to get naked and without a mattress and blankets I was kept for another ten days... After I was put into a dark room and I found out I was bleeding badly so I told this to Pešek, who was the investigator and also the woman who was guarding me.  I mentioned I was afraid of aborting my baby.  I asked both of them for a doctor, but Pešek just answered that it would be better off if another beast like would never be brought into the world." 

Physical violence was one of the most common ways people were pushed into confession or at least to say something at all, whether it was true or not.  Some people also went through the Gestapo hearings of WWII and some commented this way, "The Fascist torturer wanted to tear out the truth from you, the communists in this country wanted the lie."  Bringing a person down was also another widely used method.  These methods were also crossing the bounds of human logic and that can be illustrated in the words of Ladislav Holdoš, "In the morning something terrible happened.  The door opened and into the pigsty came a guard with a tub full of shit.  He was telling me to wash myself, I refused, showing him the water in the tub wasn't clean.  The guard was ordering me though, to wash myself!  Again I didn't want to do it.  So he grabbed my neck and put my head into the tub starting and I started to fling about...  No where (in any other prison that Mr. Holdoš went through) did they every degraded us like they did in this one instant." 

The investigators found another way to persuade Communists who were also victims and involved in the process with Rudolf Slánský.  Those were the people who most trusted Communism and its ideas until the very final moment that they thought it was either a mistake or that with their confession they were helping the Communist party.  Ladislav Holdoš, who was persuaded or passionately communist described this tactic this way, "In October 1951 I started to "plead" again, "The party wants that, so I will do it.  There was Doubek, the boss of the investigators and he was present during one of my interrogations.  Throttling me and yelling that I would confess something that I had never dreamed about...  Doubek said, "You are on one side of the river, the party is on the other.  If you want to help it, you will have to jump into the cold water, swim across, confess your guilt as well as the others.  Then everything will be alright."  The methods of investigating aimed to destroy the suspects' morality, to undermine their dignity, and force them to into confession.  To confess was very important to investigators because that was the base under which the whole process was built.  From their point of view, it was necessary to make the accused person speak.  It wasn't important whether he said the truth or a lie. It was more important whether it suited the direction of the investigation.  At the end of the investigation there was a trial, which was a comedy though, because the sentences were already prepared.  In any case, none of the sentences were short.  Most of the time the punishments were longer than ten years.  When such a sentence was decided, many people felt relief because in many cases there was a possibility that they could have had a worse sentence, the death penalty[5].

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