Albanian past secret service center open to public

Albanian past state security's centre known as the "House of Leaves" and built in 1931 as a medical clinic was open to public as a museum on Saturday in Tirana.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Edi Rama, Culture Minister Mirela Kumbaro and renowned personalities of the country's political and cultural life, Albanian telegraphic agency reported.

"We today are not doing neither more nor less than shedding light on what we have inherited from our history," Rama said.

Kumbaro said that this tortures building should not be hidden anymore, because Albanians should have no more taboos; they have to face the past and see history as it has been.

This two-storey building, one of the last regime's state security arteries, known as "The House of leaves", is the place where everyone was tapped, intercepted, where all the data on any suspicious by the last regime were held.

Built in 1931, the building originally had a clinical function. During World War II, under German occupation, it belonged to the Gestapo's, while immediately afterwards, during the first years of the new regime, it became a centre of State's Security (the political police) used for investigations.

Since 1950, it became the headquarters of scientific and technical section of State's Security.

Besides the history of the House and functions of the Technical and Scientific Section, the museum will outline facts and other dimensions relating to the control of the Secret Police. Endit