Julia Brystiger
Encyclopedia
Julia Brystiger was a Polish
Communist
activist and member of the security apparatus in Stalinist Poland
. She was also known as Julia Brystygier, Bristiger, Brustiger, Briestiger, Brystygierowa, Bristigierowa, and by her nicknames – given by the victims of torture: Luna, Bloody Luna, Daria, Ksenia, and Maria. The nickname Bloody Luna was a direct reference of her Gestapo
-like methods during interrogations. Her pen name
was Julia Preiss
.
Brystiger was the daughter of a Jewish pharmacist
from Stryj (now Ukraine
). In 1920 she graduated from high school in Lwów (new Second Polish Republic
) and married a Zionist activist Natan (Nathan) Brystiger. She studied history at the Lwów University
while pregnant and a year later gave birth to a son, Michał Bristiger.
After graduating from University, Brystiger went to Paris
where she continued her education, receiving a PhD in philosophy. Upon their return, in 1928–1929, she got a job at a high school in Wilno and in a Jewish Teacher's College Tarbuch. Since 1927, she was an active participant in the communist movement, and in 1929 was fired because of her communist agitation. Working for the Communist Party of Poland
, she was arrested several times, and in 1937 was sentenced to 2 years in prison.
, accepted Soviet
citizenship and became an active member of the Soviet political administration. She created the so-called Committee of Political Prisoners, which helped the NKVD
to imprison several members of the prewar Polish opposition movements. She was "denouncing people on such scale, that she antagonized even Communist party members". Ironically, at one point Brystiger oversaw the interrogation and persecution of Bela and Józef Goldberg – her future colleague, the UB interrogator known as Józef Różański
. Różańskis had committed "a crime" of accepting Western food-aid in the form of two kilograms of rice and a bag of flour from the Polish Government in Exile
's embassy, in order to save their daughter from starvation. A few years later, Józef Różański
joined the NKVD and eventually, became a high ranking functionary in the Polish secret police. He ended up working alongside Brystiger – his former interrogator – in the Ministry of Public Security of Poland
under Stalinism
.
Following German Operation Barbarossa
Brystiger fled to Kharkov
, then to Samarkand
deep in the USSR. In 1943-44, she worked for the Union of Polish Patriots
, and in October 1944, joined the new Polish Workers' Party
. In December 1944, after returning behind the Soviet front, Brystygier began working for the infamous Ministry of Public Security of Poland
, where she soon got promoted to the rank of Director of the Fifth Department created in July 1946 specifically for the purpose of persecution and torture of Polish religious personalities. Her career is believed to have been so quick also because she was intimate with such high functionaries as Jakub Berman
and Hilary Minc
. In the Polish official archives, there's an instruction written by Brystygier to her subordinates, about the purpose of torture:
Brystiger personally oversaw the first stages of each UB investigation at her place of employment. She would torture the captured persons using her own methods such as whipping male victims' genitals. One of her victims was a man named Szafarzynski – from the Olsztyn
office of the Polish People's Party – who died as a result of interrogation carried out by Brystygier. One of the victims of her interrogation methods testified later: "She is a murderous monster, worse than German female guards of the concentration camps". Anna Roszkiewicz–Litwiniwiczowa, a former soldier of the Home Army, said about Brystygier: "She was famous for her sadistic tortures; she seemed to have been obsessed with sadistic treatment of genitalia and was fulfilling her libido in that way.".
Brystiger became the head of the 5th Department of MBP sometime in the late 1940s. It specialized in the persecution of Polish religious leaders. Brystygier – a dogmatic Marxist – yearned to destroy all religion as an "opiate of the masses
". She directed the operation to arrest and detain the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski. The decision to arrest him had been made earlier in Moscow
. Brystygier took an active part in the "war against religion" in the 1950s, in which only in 1950 (in one year), 123 Roman Catholic priests were imprisoned. She also persecuted other congregations, such as the 2,000 jailed Jehovah's Witnesses
. Julia Brystygier left the Ministry of Public Security in 1956 and tried to become a writer, authoring a novel "Crooked Letters". She worked in a publishing house under Jewish communist Jerzy Borejsza
(Różański's brother), and was a frequent visitor in a boarding school for vision impaired, in a village near Warsaw. In 1975, at the age of 73, she asked for baptism and converted to Catholicism
. She died the same year.
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
Communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
activist and member of the security apparatus in Stalinist Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
. She was also known as Julia Brystygier, Bristiger, Brustiger, Briestiger, Brystygierowa, Bristigierowa, and by her nicknames – given by the victims of torture: Luna, Bloody Luna, Daria, Ksenia, and Maria. The nickname Bloody Luna was a direct reference of her Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
-like methods during interrogations. Her pen name
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
was Julia Preiss
Preiss
Preiss is a Germanic surname, and may refer to:* Ferdinand Preiss , German sculptor* Balthazar Preiss , Austrian naturalist* Ludwig Preiss , German naturalist* Wolfgang Preiss , German actor...
.
Brystiger was the daughter of a Jewish pharmacist
Pharmacist
Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...
from Stryj (now Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
). In 1920 she graduated from high school in Lwów (new Second Polish Republic
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
) and married a Zionist activist Natan (Nathan) Brystiger. She studied history at the Lwów University
Lviv University
The Lviv University or officially the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv is the oldest continuously operating university in Ukraine...
while pregnant and a year later gave birth to a son, Michał Bristiger.
After graduating from University, Brystiger went to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where she continued her education, receiving a PhD in philosophy. Upon their return, in 1928–1929, she got a job at a high school in Wilno and in a Jewish Teacher's College Tarbuch. Since 1927, she was an active participant in the communist movement, and in 1929 was fired because of her communist agitation. Working for the Communist Party of Poland
Communist Party of Poland
The Communist Party of Poland is a historical communist party in Poland. It was a result of the fusion of Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania and the Polish Socialist Party-Left in the Communist Workers Party of Poland .-1918-1921:The KPRP was founded on 16 December 1918 as...
, she was arrested several times, and in 1937 was sentenced to 2 years in prison.
Stalinist agent
After the Nazi and Soviet attack on Poland, Brystiger escaped to SamarkandSamarkand
Although a Persian-speaking region, it was not united politically with Iran most of the times between the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire and the Arab conquest . In the 6th century it was within the domain of the Turkic kingdom of the Göktürks.At the start of the 8th century Samarkand came...
, accepted Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
citizenship and became an active member of the Soviet political administration. She created the so-called Committee of Political Prisoners, which helped the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
to imprison several members of the prewar Polish opposition movements. She was "denouncing people on such scale, that she antagonized even Communist party members". Ironically, at one point Brystiger oversaw the interrogation and persecution of Bela and Józef Goldberg – her future colleague, the UB interrogator known as Józef Różański
Józef Rózanski
Józef Różański was a communist in prewar Second Polish Republic, member of the Soviet NKVD and later, colonel of the Stalinist Ministry of Public Security of Poland. Born into a Jewish family in Warsaw, Różański became active in the Communist Party of Poland before World War II...
. Różańskis had committed "a crime" of accepting Western food-aid in the form of two kilograms of rice and a bag of flour from the Polish Government in Exile
Polish government in Exile
The Polish government-in-exile, formally known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in Exile , was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which...
's embassy, in order to save their daughter from starvation. A few years later, Józef Różański
Józef Rózanski
Józef Różański was a communist in prewar Second Polish Republic, member of the Soviet NKVD and later, colonel of the Stalinist Ministry of Public Security of Poland. Born into a Jewish family in Warsaw, Różański became active in the Communist Party of Poland before World War II...
joined the NKVD and eventually, became a high ranking functionary in the Polish secret police. He ended up working alongside Brystiger – his former interrogator – in the Ministry of Public Security of Poland
Ministry of Public Security of Poland
The Ministry of Public Security of Poland was a Polish communist secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage service operating from 1945 to 1954 under Jakub Berman of the Politburo...
under Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
.
Following German Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
Brystiger fled to Kharkov
Kharkiv
Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was...
, then to Samarkand
Samarkand
Although a Persian-speaking region, it was not united politically with Iran most of the times between the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire and the Arab conquest . In the 6th century it was within the domain of the Turkic kingdom of the Göktürks.At the start of the 8th century Samarkand came...
deep in the USSR. In 1943-44, she worked for the Union of Polish Patriots
Union of Polish Patriots
Union of Polish Patriots was a political body created by Polish communists and Joseph Stalin in Soviet Union in 1943...
, and in October 1944, joined the new Polish Workers' Party
Polish Workers' Party
The Polish Workers' Party was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland, and merged with the Polish Socialist Party in 1948 to form the Polish United Workers' Party.-History:...
. In December 1944, after returning behind the Soviet front, Brystygier began working for the infamous Ministry of Public Security of Poland
Ministry of Public Security of Poland
The Ministry of Public Security of Poland was a Polish communist secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage service operating from 1945 to 1954 under Jakub Berman of the Politburo...
, where she soon got promoted to the rank of Director of the Fifth Department created in July 1946 specifically for the purpose of persecution and torture of Polish religious personalities. Her career is believed to have been so quick also because she was intimate with such high functionaries as Jakub Berman
Jakub Berman
Jakub Berman was born into a middle-class Jewish family. Berman first became a prominent communist in prewar Poland. Toward the end of World War II he joined the Politburo of the Soviet-formed Polish United Workers' Party...
and Hilary Minc
Hilary Minc
Hilary Minc – born into a middle-class Jewish family of Oskar Minc and Stefania née Fajersztajn – was a communist politician in Stalinist Poland and pro-Soviet Marxist economist. Minc joined the Communist Party of Poland before World War II...
. In the Polish official archives, there's an instruction written by Brystygier to her subordinates, about the purpose of torture:
- In fact, the Polish intelligentsia as such is against the Communist system and basically, it is impossible to re-educate it. All that remains is to liquidate it. However, since we must not repeat the mistake of the Russians after the 1917 revolution, when all intelligentsia members were exterminated, and the country did not develop correctly afterwards, we have to create such a system of terror and pressure that the members of the intelligentsia would not dare to be politically active.
Brystiger personally oversaw the first stages of each UB investigation at her place of employment. She would torture the captured persons using her own methods such as whipping male victims' genitals. One of her victims was a man named Szafarzynski – from the Olsztyn
Olsztyn
Olsztyn is a city in northeastern Poland, on the Łyna River. Olsztyn has been the capital of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship since 1999. It was previously in the Olsztyn Voivodeship...
office of the Polish People's Party – who died as a result of interrogation carried out by Brystygier. One of the victims of her interrogation methods testified later: "She is a murderous monster, worse than German female guards of the concentration camps". Anna Roszkiewicz–Litwiniwiczowa, a former soldier of the Home Army, said about Brystygier: "She was famous for her sadistic tortures; she seemed to have been obsessed with sadistic treatment of genitalia and was fulfilling her libido in that way.".
Brystiger became the head of the 5th Department of MBP sometime in the late 1940s. It specialized in the persecution of Polish religious leaders. Brystygier – a dogmatic Marxist – yearned to destroy all religion as an "opiate of the masses
Opium of the People
"Religion is the opium of the people" is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of Karl Marx. It was translated from the German original, "Die Religion .....
". She directed the operation to arrest and detain the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski. The decision to arrest him had been made earlier in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. Brystygier took an active part in the "war against religion" in the 1950s, in which only in 1950 (in one year), 123 Roman Catholic priests were imprisoned. She also persecuted other congregations, such as the 2,000 jailed Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...
. Julia Brystygier left the Ministry of Public Security in 1956 and tried to become a writer, authoring a novel "Crooked Letters". She worked in a publishing house under Jewish communist Jerzy Borejsza
Jerzy Borejsza
Jerzy Borejsza , was a Polish communist activist and writer, chief of the communist press and publishing syndicate in the Stalinist period of the People's Republic of Poland.-Biography:Borejsza was born as Beniamin Goldberg to a Polish Jewish family...
(Różański's brother), and was a frequent visitor in a boarding school for vision impaired, in a village near Warsaw. In 1975, at the age of 73, she asked for baptism and converted to Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
. She died the same year.
See also
- History of Poland: Stalinist era (1948–1956)
- Michał Bristiger, Julia Brystygier's son (in Polish Wikipedia)