Letter from Latvia
A HOUSE OF HORRORS
On a recent foray to Riga, I visited what is referred to as “the
Corner House” – the former headquarters of the Soviet KGB secret
police in Latvia, also known as Cheka. I thought this was going to be
another exhibit and tour of spy gadgetry and historical operations
much like the Spy Museum in Washington, DC, but this was nothing of
the sort. Rather it was a poignant and emotional look into the horror
of totalitarianism and repression.
We entered the imposing structure that blended in just like any other
art nouveau building in Riga. It could be an apartment house, or an
office building, or anything else. Built in 1912, it, in fact, was
originally an apartment building, but the interior was modified into a
veritable dungeon.
As I entered it appeared to be an abandoned building inside. There was
no heat, and so cold I, along with my friend, and the others on the
tour, continued to wear our jackets, scarves, and gloves through the
visit. We bought our tickets for 10,00€ each from a young woman behind
a window. She said the (English-language) guided tour started at 11am,
and we had about 30 minutes, so she suggested we look at the exhibits
in the main hall during our wait.
These exhibits gave vivid context to make sense of what we were about
to see in this house of horrors. There are several panels with stories
and photographs about the two Soviet occupations in Latvia and about
what happened in this building during those years: 1940-1941 and
1944-1991. Latvians were arrested for anything considered or even
suspected as opposition or dissent towards the Soviets, even just
making a joke about the government or regime leadership would get you
locked up.
Reading the stories of the individuals on the panels makes this stark
and dismal place so much more real. I looked at the faces of those who
found their demise within the walls of the Corner House. They seemed
just like ordinary people, like any of us. I imagine them doing their
daily chores, going to work, minding their own business, suddenly
finding themselves arrested and brought to this secret prison.
Our tour guide appeared, another young woman who was clearly
passionate about the history of what happened in the building. She
explained she had two sources for the information she was going to
give us: abandoned and discovered documents from the KGB and
first-hand accounts from detainee survivors. She said gaps in
information can be found with the Russian government, but they can
only hope they release it one day.
We started by seeing the administrative office where the prisoners
were photographed and fingerprinted, the room for the duty officer who
registered the detainees, and the interrogation rooms. Then we moved
into the upper part of the building. A couple of floors above, the
atmosphere became worse, in fact, squalid – narrow, dark corridors
with peeling paint, and musty smelling rooms with stains on the walls,
entered through heavy metal doors. Some detainee cells measured no
more than 1.6 square meters (about 17 square feet).
Hard wooden boards for beds and a filthy bucket in the corner for
urinating and defecating are the only furnishings in the cells. Our
guide said, “the temperature was always at 87ºF (30ºC), no matter the
season,” which was in contrast to how frigid it was the November day
we went. It was kept hot as a method of torture to dehydrate the
inmates. As they craved water, they would be deprived of it. The guide
told us it was common practice to have a glass of water sitting on the
table during interrogations. Desperately thirsty detainees knew if
they reached for it, they’d be beaten.
“There were multiple types of torture,” the guide explained. From
beating of the whole body, beating of particularly sensitive areas of
the body, burning, hair pulling, and continuous interrogation for 8-9
days in a row. Sleep deprivation was standard where lights were never
turned off, and covering your eyes would get you beaten. “The
effectiveness of terror lies not in the terror itself, but in its
mix,” she said. “It creates fear.” Detainees were told if they admit
guilt, it would lessen their sentence, but in actuality it likely
meant they would either be executed or sent to a gulag labor camp in
Siberia. If they didn’t admit guilt then detainees would typically be
tortured until they admitted guilt or until they died.
Detainees were allowed outside of their cells on random occasions into
a small interior courtyard where they were asked to walk in a circle
with their heads down. They were devoid of all contact with the
outside world (family letters, books and newspapers), forbidden to
have showers. Often, they would write their surnames on the wall in
the hopes, if ever discovered, family would know they were held there.
This reprieve to go into the courtyard and smell fresh air and see sky
was not for any humane reason. The purpose of letting them see a
glimpse of the outside was to give them a glimmer of hope, and make
them break, and admit to their guilt in hopes they could get out.
Everyone on the tour was visibly moved as she opened to door to the
former execution chamber. It was hidden behind a false wall that the
KGB built before abandoning the building. When it was taken over in
2014 by the museum, the building was searched and investigated by
forensic teams funded by the Government of Latvia. Our guide said she
was there when forensic teams found bullets, bullet holes, and human
blood, including hand prints of those who didn't die immediately,
desperately trying to crawl away.
Within the depths of this building right in the middle of Riga,
thousands of Latvians were imprisoned, interrogated, tortured, and
executed until 1991. What makes this more astonishing is to realize
that many of us, when all these things were happening, were leading
safe lives in the U.S. and other free countries of the world. In fact,
I remember in 1990 I was a 7th grade, middle schooler, and my Social
Studies teacher asked the class if we knew what the USSR stood for. I
was the only one who raised my hand. Although I knew what the letters
stood for, I didn’t know the extent of what the Soviet state stood for
– oppression, repression, abuse…totalitarianism. The Corner House has
now become a vivid symbol of the totalitarian regime during the five
decades of Soviet occupation.
The museum documents in great detail the atrocities of the Cheka in
Latvia and it’s at the same time a powerful reminder of the mass
repression and genocide occurred under some Communist regimes during
the twentieth century.
Our tour guide – a sweet, pretty, innocent-looking woman – deviated
from her sweetness, and a subtle agitation in her countenance and
voice was detected, as if she was holding back, "today Latvia is a
totally free country where we can voice and express our opinions about
our government, but a version of this is still occurring with our
neighbor to the east, less than 2,000km from our border." It’s
understandable that Latvians have hostility and contempt for Russia
even today.
This was a sobering experience. Leaving the building, I had a familiar
thought – the same thought, maybe a cliché, I had when hearing stories
of the Holocaust – these scars need to remain visible so people can
never forget, and never repeat, and it is the obligation of those who
are free to protest injustices to keep nations advancing and
progressing towards all things free and fair.
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