Country Security Division, Prague Zemský odbor bezpečnosti Praha (300)

Miscellaneous records related to evidence collected by the Czech secret police in the course of the investigation of Nazi crimes committed in the occupied Czechoslovakia during World War II. The following file is a small sub-collection within the larger collection of 9.5 linear meters. A large accretion of the files to follow at a later date. Copyright Holder: Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů The Czech state security service, known as the StB Státní bezpečnost (Czech)/ Štátna bezpečnosť (Slovak), was active between 1945 and 1990. The sole aim of this force was to deal with any issues that could be considered anti-communist; this usually meant arresting, torturing and even executing any citizens that spoke up against or protested the communist regime. The StB were used as an instrument by the Communist Party to show their power, they intimidated, spied and even forged false allegations and evidence against anti-communists. Their aim was to keep any talk against the party and therefore chance of uprising at a minimum. One of the many visible actions they took against the Czechoslovakian people was by trying to destroy or erase any signs of their revolutionary actions against the regime. One of these was the self-immolation and suicide of Jan Palach in 1973, the StB tried to destroy any memory of his action by trying to stop the demonstrations that occurred at his funeral as well as exhuming his body after burial and cremating it. An anonymous body replaced his at the grave site, reassuring the Communist Party that they had deprived the Czech and Slovak people of a martyr. It is not until October of 1990 when the cremated remains were returned to their rightful resting place. Actions such as this were seen as normal for the StB, as it was very important for them to keep the communist agenda. [Source: https://communisim.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/the-czechoslovak-state-security-stb/]