Tens of thousands of snoopers and spies who worked with the Czechoslovak communist regime to denounce their neighbours, friends and families were unmasked on the internet yesterday.
Thirteen years after the velvet revolution that ended the communist era, Czechs were given the chance to learn who betrayed them to the all-powerful secret police, when the government posted a list of 75 000 collaborators on the interior ministry website.
For those unable to access the web, Czech police also provided a printed copy of the lists of names, running to 12 volumes and 5 700 pages, at four locations in Prague.
”It should not harm the people listed too much,” said the deputy Czech interior minister, Vladimir Zeman.
While approximately 1 000 copies of the 12-volume set were promptly snapped up, government officials reported that the interior ministry website devoted to ”investigating and documenting the crimes of communism” received four times as many visitors as usual.
Yesterday’s disclosures indicate that one in every 130 Czechs worked with the secret police in what was perhaps the most repressive communist regime in central Europe until 1989. In the former Czechoslovakia, a country of 15 million, the regime jailed around 280 000 people for their political beliefs or activities.
The number of collaborators revealed yesterday probably understates the level of cooperation with the regime, since many secret police files were destroyed at the time of the revolution. Documents leaked in the early 1990s to a former Czech dissident, the veracity of which has never really been challenged, listed more than double the number of collaborators.
The problem of how to deal with the past and the legacy of betrayal and collaboration with the communists have poisoned politics across postcommunist Europe for the past decade.
While Czechs have been able to see their own secret police files since 1997, it is unusual for lists such as yesterday’s to be published, making the identities of collaborators known to the general public. – Guardian Unlimited Â