Days of Our Lives in Secret Police Files

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The files of the former East Bloc secret police agencies present fragments of individual lives, consisting of a collection of informers' reports, officers' reports and analyses, letters, photographs, manuscripts, and transcripts of interrogations and wiretapped private conversations. While these notes and reports resemble particular snapshots of a person's life, often taken from different angles and through different lenses, confirmed and reconfirmed by numerous informers, they typically resist attempts to assemble them into a coherent plot, yet they offer relevant insights into the organization of the Securitate and its tactics. The selectively collected facts are astonishingly detailed and focus on many events in an individual's life. This panel will focus on several cases of informers and their significance in representing everyday life in the former Eastern Bloc countries (East Germany, Romania, and Czechoslovakia).

Sub Unit

• History: 1945-1990

Chair

• Corina Liliana Petrescu, U of Mississippi

Papers

• Tracking the Informer Network of the Czechoslovak Security Police (StB) - Mark Cornwall, U of Southampton (UK)

• The Stuff 'Legends' Are Made of: The Case of Claus Stephani - Valentina Glajar, Texas State U

• 'The Fate of an Entire Generation': The Ethical Responsibilities of the Target - Susan Signe Morrison, Texas State U

Discussant

• Corina Liliana Petrescu, U of Mississippi