About torture in Stasi and KGB: methods of pressure on women in prisons of the GDR and Belarus are the same

About torture in Stasi and KGB: methods of pressure on women in prisons of the GDR and Belarus are the same. But the harder it was to experience the conclusion, the less emotionally you describe it. Apparently, everything is hidden so deep that on paper you can convey only the facts ...

Recently, Radio "Freedom" told the story of Eada Schongerz - a German TV presenter, which was 1974 to 1977, the Stasi prison was concluded. In this story, it was most shocked by how the same torture methods are in relation to women in the Ministry of State Security of the GDR 40 years ago and the State Security Committee of Belarus today.

Reading the book of Mikhail Khodorkovsky “Prison and Volya”, she drew attention to the paradox: the harder it was to experience the conclusion, the less emotionally you describe it. Apparently, everything is hidden so deeply that on paper you can convey only facts.

This article is also a comparative torture analysis.

The head of the KGB of the KGB of Belarus, Colonel Alexander Orlov at night interrogation, demanding from me “grateful” testimony, said: “You will be released no earlier than 5 years later. And I promise you - after that you can’t have children. ”

And he really did everything so that I did not have children. First of all, he ordered to throw into the camera without a toilet and a berth. In January, in a cold chamber I had to sleep on boards on a stone floor. The toilet was taken out during the day under the escort every three to four hours. From ten in the evening to six in the morning, during the end, - not once.

I stopped drinking water. She allowed herself to drink one or two small mugs of tea per day to keep warm. But still the body was torn from pain. It seemed that the bladder would burst. Sometimes at night she simply could not lie: she sat down and swayed, as crazy, from side to side. This was immediately followed by the evil shout of the guard, who watched us around the clock in order to immediately lie down, because it was forbidden to sit during the end of the end.

The pains have become chronic. The prison doctor, having examined me, ordered the nurse to write a statement addressed to the head of the prison demanding to take my camera to the toilet more often. I remember how he whispered to her: “If they do not stop, the consequences for the body will be such that they will regret ...”

They began to withdraw every 2-3 hours. The previous regime was operating at night.

There were no women in the KGB prison at all. We, the prisoners of the pre -trial detention center, were “guarded” by only men - in black masks, armed with batons and electric shock -cooperatives.

In the shower, which was allowed to take once a week, we were taken by a woman working as a controller and part -time - in a prison office and a library. When she went to the ballot, the same guards in black masks began to drive to the “bathhouse”. The door to the shower was with a window, which was not supposed to close. While we were trying to have time to wash, the whole shift was going under this window. In the eye of the toilet, women were also watched by guards-male.

Supervision of those sitting in the cell was round -the -clock - guards (I remind you that they were only men) watched us through a special “eye” constantly, taking breaks of no more than five minutes. To wash ourselves, we closed part of the camera with a sheet. Sometimes they suffered it, sometimes they demanded to remove the sheet, because she "closes the review."

Once a month, the prosecutor came to prison. It was pointless to complain to him - the prosecutor’s office did not take any response measures. But the prison administration instantly reacted. After a complaint of one prisoner, most cameras, including ours, were banned from lying during the day.

Sitting from 6 a.m. to 22 pm on iron bunks is incredibly difficult - the back hurts. To rely on cold walls means to catch a cold. So they sat, leaning on each other.

For fragile mother’s health, I have been afraid of my whole life, since childhood. She underwent several operations, suffers from chronic diseases. This was well known in the KGB. The head of the prison with obvious pleasure repeated me: “You will come out in 5 years, and your mother will die. She is already barely on her feet when she brings you programs. ”

From thoughts, how the people most dear to you suffer, you could really go crazy ...

Interrogations in prison after the end of the end are prohibited by law. Nevertheless, in the KGB pre -trial detention center I was raised from a wooden flooring and after 22 hours. I had to get dressed quickly and go.

The current Minister of the Interior Igor Shunevich called me for such an interrogation, then - the head of the KGB department for combating corruption and organized crime.

I was already exhausted by day interrogations that lasted several hours and almost always without a lawyer. Sometimes such interrogations were 3-4 per day (the investigator, the operative and the head of the prison) and then had to miss lunch and dinner.

By the evening, the forces were already at zero, because I had to concentrate all their attention so as not to harm other political prisoners with a careless word. Therefore, the purpose of those who called us for night interrogations was to finish and break.

The light in the cells burned around the clock. Close your face with a handkerchief or blanket so that the bright light does not shine directly in the eyes, it is forbidden.

When Irina Halip and I declared a hunger strike in protest against illegal arrest, at night a daylight lamp stopped changing to dim night lighting. Bright light burned 24 hours a day, and we were ordered to sleep face to “feeder”.

The cameras were cold. It was doubly cold - it was drawn from the stone floor. The blankets were given out, but it was difficult to warm up under them. Because of this, bronchitis went into the chronic stage.

In the Belarusian prison, it is generally better not to get sick. The diagnosis made to me by a prison doctor instead of a clear concussion after beating on the square is “adaptation to the conditions of the camera”. And this despite the fact that blood came from the ears. When headaches became unbearable, they called an ambulance, but despite the recommendations of doctors, they did not let go of the picture. Dali only a pill of citimon.

You breathe in the chamber not with air, but with dust, which over decades with a thick layer has accumulated on radiators closed with grids. Having washed in the morning, already in the evening, wiping his face, you notice that cotton wool is black.

And most importantly, in prison you are convinced that you are a subhuman, cattle. Their goal is to trample your human dignity. You are nobody. A creature without rights with which you can do anything. And this is inspired by all: security, administration, operatives, investigators - every day, hour, minute.

When you go for an interrogation with upside down and hands behind the back (men were also led in handcuffs), when personal searches and “shmon” in the cell take place several times a week, during which all your things are interrupted, checking each laying and spilling even out tea from boxes.

And it doesn’t matter that you have not yet been convicted of a pre -trial detention center, your guilt is not proven. For them, you are already a criminal, a finished person.

The fact that the guard hid faces under black masks at first scared me. Then I realized that they were afraid to be identified.

Results for repressions in the GDR, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania were punished. The victims of repression in these countries find and identify their tormentors today. And they all sit on the bench, regardless of age.

I am sure the same will happen in Belarus. It seems to me that I recognize them even by my eyes. I specifically watched all the time, tried to remember ...

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Natalia Radina is the editor -in -chief of the largest Belarusian independent site Charter97.org. Was arrested on December 19, 2010. I was accused of organizing a protest against falsification of the results of the presidential election (threatened up to 15 years in prison). I spent 1.5 months in the KGB pre -trial detention center. She was released on a recognizance not to leave. On the eve of the court, she escaped from the supervision of the KGB through Russia to the European Union, where she received political asylum. Opened the editor of the site in Warsaw.