Institute continues to delve into dark past

The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (ÚSTR) is charged with examining the country's past under both Nazi occupation and Soviet domination. While the much of Prague is in a celebratory mood preparing for the 20th anniversary of the end of communism, the ÚSTR is sticking hard to its task of looking into a darker past.

On Nov. 9, the institute held a press conference announcing its newest findings from the archives of the Czechoslovak National Security Corps (SNB) with a focus on outing those who worked for the secret police (StB).

"It is our duty to show also the negative information on 1989 - not only the demonstrators, but also the preparatory measures of the regime to 'protect the country from the enemies of the regime,' " said ÚSTR Director Pavel Žáček. "We have gathered data on the retaliation measures from the SNB and StB."

Previously unknown to the public were the names of all active people who had worked in the Main Intelligence Directorate of SNB as of Nov. 17, 1989. The same can be said of a similar list of counter-intelligence operatives who spied on dissidents and foreigners living in Czechoslovakia. A new Web-based archive accessible to the public includes photographs, ID cards and the cover occupations of these secret-service officers. It is the first time any post-communist state has made such information public.

"StB agents had cover names. It was vital to decipher their 'official job' and then what they did in reality for the intelligence service," Žáček said. "A large number of them participated in the November 1989 repression."

Until Nov. 9, the only names that had been made public were of people who had collaborated with the StB, not the names of core intelligence operatives. Of the 1,028 people actively serving in 1989, the names of 986 are listed on the new Web site.

"In 940 cases, we have managed to discover their full identification, which you can see in their profiles," Žáček said. "Their official employment was, for example, at Czech Airlines, ČSOB, ministries, the Czechoslovak Business Chamber or Press Agency Orbis."

Among the biggest revelations announced Nov. 9 were details related to the student who supposedly died during the Nov. 17, 1989, protests. Martin Šmíd was said to have been beaten to death by security forces near Národní třída. Šmíd, however, was actually StB operative Ludvík Zifčák, who faked his death. The incident was a ploy by authorities to scare potential protesters from taking to the streets in the future. It backfired, instead drawing sympathy for the students and further mobilizing public opinion in opposition to communist measures to curb dissent. A full documentary by director Igor Chaun on the incident will be shown on Czech Television Nov. 17.

Meanwhile, an exhibition curated by the ÚSTR is now on display at the American Center. The display titled "On the Cold War Front: Czechoslovakia 1948-1956" recounts the lives of couriers who risked their lives to transport messages across the Iron Curtain in its early years. The exhibition is in both Czech and English and details the development of foreign intelligence battles, stories of various clandestine border crossings, propaganda from the period and the tools used by the personalities involved. Particular attention is paid to exiled intelligence groups who helped fight communism in their native lands from the outside.

Many of the images point to the gritty reality of the work, hardly resembling the romanticized image of intelligence work in Hollywood films. One image shows a dead corpse twisted in barbed wire at a border crossing; in another, a man is forced to stage evidence that will later be used against him in a trial for attempting an assassination.  

The same exhibit was briefly displayed in the spring at the City of Prague Museum and is dedicated to "the thousands of unknown fellow citizens who, after February 1948, decided to actively fight from abroad against the communist power in Czechoslovakia," according to the catalogue accompanying the project.

- Klára Jiřičná contributed to this report.

Benjamin Cunningham can be reached at
bcunningham@praguepost.com