Andrija Hebrang

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Glavnjaca

Glavnjaca (Glavnjača) had two floors, it had been built in the second half of the 19th century. Between the two wars it was a prison of the Belgrade City Administration where the biggest national revolutionaries, communists and union activists were detained. It was demolished in the mid-1950s and has remained synonymous with torture. Glavnjaca had a system by which prisoners were tortured until they “confessed”. Torture rooms and solitary confinement were in the basement and on the first floor. There were rooms called “chimneys” in which prisoners were tortured with fire. Those not easily broken would be closed in some sort of a wardrobe with an opening for the head while the door would hold the body to the wall, in a standing position.