1. MGB HEADQUARTERS AND THE MUKHAVETS PRISON IN BREST 2. PARTISAN ACTIVITY IN THE BREST AREA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00810A002700750005-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 16, 2009
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: December 8, 1953
• Content Type: REPORT

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/16: CIA-RDP80-0081 OA002700750005-5
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
INFORMATION REPORT
SECRET
SECURITY INFORMATION
COUNTRY USSR (Belorussian SSR)/ Poland REPORT
SUBJECT 1. MOB Headquarters and the
Mukhavets Prison in Brest
2. Partisan Activity in the Brest Area
This Document contains Information affecting the Na-
tional Defense of the United States, within the mean-
ing of Title 18, Sections 793 and 794, of the U.S. Code, as
amended. Its transmission or revelation of its contents
to or receipt by an unauthorized person is prohibited
by law. The reproduction of this form is prohibited.
DATE DISTR. 8 December 1953
NO. OF PAGES 4
REQUIREMENT NO. RD
2
REFERENCES
THE SOURCE EVALUATIONS IN THIS REPORT ARE DEFINITIVE.
THE APPRAISAL OF CONTENT IS TENTATIVE.
(FOR KEY SEE REVERSE)
MGB Headquarters
1. In 1948, MGB headquarters in Brest (N 52-06, E 23-43) were located on a main
street running,north and south in the central or western part of the city.
The building occupied by the KGB was said,by its prisoner-inmates,to have
been the former Polish forestry (Nadlesnictwo) building. It was a large,
square, three-story structure which had many windows and an inside courtyard.
Interrogations were conducted on the second floor and prison cells were
located in the cellar. The building was located on the west side of the
street. On its right were a two or three-story hospital and a two or three-
story-bank building. Across the street from the bank was a church' constructed
Of wood.
2. The following officials at the MGB headquarters
a. Colonel Rogov -
chief of the MGB in Brest" in 19 8.
He was an interrogator in B res in .
b. Ca tain Panamarov -
c. Lt. Paramanov
9-~
was an MGB interrogator in Brest
of the city of Brest.
a General Sokolovskr who was said to be chief (nachalnik)
4. In addition to receiving their salaries, prisoners believed that MOB inter-
rogators at the Brest headquarters received an additional 200 rubles for
every confession they extracted. For this reason, they were very anxious
STATE
x NAVY
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(Note: Washington Distribution Indicated By "X"; Field Distribution By "#E".)
AEC
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SECRET 25X1
to extract confessions from prisoners even though they were untrue.
Methods of interrogation varied from prisoner to prisoner. Though not often
beaten, the prisoners were awakened at all hours of night for questioning
and were questioned for periods of 24 hours or more without food, drink,
or sleep. During these sessions, prisoners were forced'. to stand with back to
wall and awns raised. If weariness caused their arms or chins to drop, a sharp
pens L.1 jabbed the ,? elbows or chins..
When this type of interrogation did
not extract a confession, the prisoner was confined in a "kartser",which was
a small, damp, cold, solitary cell without daylight or fresh air, and which
was illuminated with a powerful light. In the "kartser", a prisoner was
permitted to sleep only five hours daily and was kept under constant obser-
vation by the guards.
6. Also used for extracting confessions were
the "sobachniki" (dog houses) and "ru as ki sacks . The "sobachnik" was 25X1
a small box in which a prisoner could neither stand up, lie down, nor sit
down fully. The "rubashka" was a sack into which a prisoner was thrust.
He was then beaten by jailers with keys or anything else available for
20 or more minutes and was also rolled around. The "sobachnik" and "rubashka"
were used to tame down unruly prisoners who showed bravado or tried to beat
up any of the officials.
7.. Women, even pregnant ones, were also interrogated in the same manner. Sounds
of women crying could often be heard in the womens' prison quarters or in
the interrogation rooms.
M haveta (Muchawiec) Prison (see sketch on page 4 )
the Mukhavets Prison was administered by the MVD. This
9.
was based on the fact that all notices dealing with prison regulations and
instructions to prisoners gave the MVD as the issuing authority. Also, guard
uniforms at the Mukhavets Prison were invariably of the standard MVD blue
and red. Some of the officials at the prison wore blue uniforms with blue
trim and one official had a black uniform, including a 'black hat.
Prisoners considered the treatment at the Mukhavets Prison good according
to USSR prison standards. The daily food ration consisted of 450 grams
of dark bread, two half-liter issues of thin soup, occasionally some fish,
and a piece of sugar and hot water (kiPyatok).,which was served in the morn-
ing. Prisoners were permitted to borrow books and were allowed to spend up
to two hours per day walking about in the prison yard or sunning themselves
in the roofless outdoor cells. A nurse visited the cells daily.
prisoners at Brest were sentenced by three different
types.of courts, one of which was held in the prison, a second in another
section of the city, and the third in Moscow.
a. Civilian (grazhdanskiy) Court - this court consisted of a judge, a
prosecutor, and a council for defense (zashchitnik)? The defendant
saw his council for defense,, who was presumably a lawyer, for the first
time when he reached the court to be sentenced. Court proceedings
seemed to be.a formality because the defendant was not asked any
questions but was simply asked if he agreed with the verdict.
b. Military Tribunal - prisoners sentenced by this court were simply ques-
tioned by individuals, described as military tribunal prosecutors,regard-
ing their confessions and asked to confirm them. Such meetings between
prisoners and prosecutors took place within the prison.
c. Special Councils (0S0 - Osoboye Soveshchaniye) - prisoners also called
these courts the "troikas" (threesome),as they were believed to consist
of three members. Prisoners did not appear before these councils, which
sat in Moscow. The prisoners' files, including interrogation reports and
confessions, apparently were sent to Moscow by the Brest MGB investigation
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authorities. The OSO then went over the documents, passed sentence,
and returned the files with the sentence to the local MGB,which then
sent the prisoner off to his permanent place of detention to serve his
sentence. Prisoners believed that the OSO sentenced important political
prisoners, while the military tribunals sentenced :industry and govern-
ment officials who embezzled large sums of state funds or property.
The civilian courts presumably sentenced those accused of minor crimes.
Partisan Activity Around Brest
11. In late 1948, shootings and brawls went on constantly in Brest. There was
a constant flow of prisoners into the Mukhavets Prison for black market
activities and for pilfering in the railroad yards. It was rumored among
the prisoners that partisans occasionally raided Brest at this time. There
was much evidence to support these rumors.. At various times of the day,
truckloads of Soviet soldiers could be heard or seen going down the city
streets in great haste. Later, groups of men in peasant dress would be
thrown into prison, some of them with gunshot wounds. In addition, quite
frequently light and muffled machine gun fire could be heard in the distance
which was usually taken as a sign of partisan roundup. At one time, there
was a rumcr that the MGB had tried to round up all the men at Malorita
(N 51-47, E 24-05), a small town about 25 kilometers southeast of Brest,
and throw them into prison as partisans. Many of the new and old prisoners
at the.Mukhavets Prison openly acknowledged that they had been partisans.
12. Most of the partisans held in the Brest prison were from the Polish, Ukrainian,
and Belorussian areas of Stanislav '(N 48-56, 3 24-42), Tarnopol (N 49-33,
E 25-36), Lvov (N 49-51, E 24-02), Przemysl (N 49-45, E 22-48), Rava Ruskaya
(N 50-14, 3 23-38), Brest (N 52-06, 3 23-43), Kobryn (N 52-13, E 24-21),
Kovel (N"51-13, E 24-38), Baranovichi (N 53-07, F, 26-02), Minsk (N 53-54.
E 27--33), Lida (N 53-53, E 25-19), Grodno (N 53-41, E 23-51), and Vilnyus
(N 54-41, 3 25-18). There were also some partisans in prison from areas
in Latvia and Lithuania.
13. The only active partisan organization) Iwas
the NSZ (Narodowe Sily Zbrajne - National Armed Forces) which operated in
Eastern Poland near Brest. Only remnants of this organization remained in
1948. The AX (Armja Krajowa - Home Army) and the EN (Konfederacya Narodu -
National Confederation) may have been active in scattered actions on the
Soviet side of the Bug River but these, and other Polish underground organ-
izations.had largely disappeared after the war. Before the hostilities
were over, the Soviet Army rounded up many of the partisans and sent them
off to the Urals or further east for work. In addition, the Polish govern-
ment offered three amnesties to partisans which many young partisans accepted.
However, many of the partisans who took advantage of these amnesties buried
their machine guns and other equipment and surrendered only rifles, pistols,
and other light equipment with the hope that the heavier equipment might
become useful at a later date. F_ -1
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Mukhavets Prison in Brest
Moskovskaya Ulitsa
el
wood
fence
00
approx. 3
m
Scale: 1/1,000
? Guard towers
d.
Roofless rest cello
a. Rectory
e.
Gate guard house
b. 3-31 meter high dark-
red brick wall
c. Prison transit cell block
f.
g.
Cells
Prison garage
church
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