Prague, Bartolomějská Street

The street acquired its oldest name, Benátská, after the poor local neighbourhood and the brothel called Benátky (Czech for “Venice”). The street was known as V Jeruzalémě or Jeruzalémská from the 14th to the early 18th centuries after Nový Jeruzalém – a preacher seminar and refuge for penitent women that Jan Milíč of Kroměříž founded on the parlour house lot in the latter half of the 14th century. Police buildings are in the location today. At the end of the 19th century, the Grey Sisters nuns took care of the sick and abandoned there. The convent was finally evicted in 1949. The detention prison of the StB was set up in the building known as "Kachlíkárna" (tile house) in 1947. In October 1952, it also housed the pre-trial custody prison of Prague I and after further organizational development it was finally shut down in September 1963. In 1950, it had a capacity of 120 inmates but it was grossly exceeded at times. Up to 45 inmates would at times be located in a cell intended for 12. The Kachlíkára also served as the main seat of the StB (Bartolomějská 14). Today, the building serves the Police of the Czech Republic. The administration of the StB housed in Bartolomějská Street 10. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, the Institute for the Documentation and Investigation of Communist Crimes was established here. The investigation methods of the StB are comparable to those of the Gestapo. Corporal and mental torture was the standard method of interrogation. Tens of thousands of Czechoslovak citizens went through the building.