Torture chamber



A Torture chamber is a room where torture is inflicted.

Methods of coercion
According to Frederick Howard Wines in his book Punishment and Reformation: A Study Of The Penitentiary System there were three main types of coercion employed in the torture chamber: Coercion by the cord, by water and by fire. In the book Retrying Galileo, 1633–1992 by Maurice A. Finocchiaro it is mentioned that there were five stages of torture that could have been applied to Galileo; He could have been threatened with torture, he could have been taken to the torture chamber and been shown the instruments, he could have been undressed as if in preparation to be tied to the instrument, without actually being tied, he could have been tied to the instrument of torture but not actually getting tortured and finally he could have been tied to the instrument and tortured. In the book Crime and criminal justice in Europe and Canada it is mentioned that fear was a factor in the process of torture and that there was a form of torture known as La présentation de la question where the prisoner was led to the torture chamber and was shown the implements of torture. While at the chamber, sentence to full torture was pronounced but, immediately after, the prisoner was taken back to the prison cell, without actually having been tortured. The torture chamber was specifically designed to evoke fear in the victims. It was usually built underground and only dimly lit. Inside the chamber waited the executioner, his face covered and wearing a black hood. When the sight of the chamber, the torture instruments and the executioner did not cause the victim to confess, a full-scale torture session was initiated.

The most common instrument of torture was the strappado, which was a simple rope and pulley system. With the pulley attached to ceiling of the chamber, the lifting rope was tied to the wrist of the victim, whose hands were tied behind their back. Subsequently, the victim was raised to the ceiling and then lowered using a jerking motion causing dislocation of the shoulder joints. To increase the suffering caused by the strappado, weights were attached to the feet of the victim.

Construction
During the Inquisition, the method of construction of the torture chamber of the papal palace at Avignon has been described as ingenious. The walls of the torture chamber were constructed in such a manner as to project the shrieks of the tortured from wall to wall, without ever reaching the outside. The chamber where the victims were being burnt was of circular construction and resembled the furnace of a glass-house with a funnel-like chimney at the top. Up to 1850 the chambers were shown to visitors after which time the ecclesiastical authorities of Avignon decided to shut them down. In a similar vein the torture chamber of the Spanish Inquisition in Lima, Peru had one metre thick walls so that the screams of the victims could not penetrate them.

In Nuremberg and Salzburg the torture chambers featured trapdoors on their floors. In Nuremberg the room underneath the main torture chamber featured torture machinery while in Salzburg, the room under the trapdoor, functioned like a waiting room for prisoners. When the time came the prisoner was pulled up and into the upper torture chamber. Other times, deep water pits could be found under the trapdoor, where the victims of the torture chamber could be thrown, after a torture session, to drown.

Palace of the Inquisition
The torture chamber was the final destination in a progression of four cell types during incarceration at the Palace of the Inquisition. The palace contained the Judgement Hall, the offices of the employees, the private apartments of the Grand Inquisitor and the detention cells adjacent to the apartments. The detention cell gradations started with the cells of mercy reserved mainly for rich transgressors who upon bequeathing all their property to the Inquisition were normally let go after a time of detention in the cells. For more difficult prisoners the next cell stage was the cell of penitence. These were situated in small round towers of about 3 metres (ten feet) in diameter. They were painted white and included rudimentary furniture such as a stool and a bed. Very little light was allowed in. If the prisoner did not cooperate, the next step in the detention process was the dungeon. The dungeon had walls 1.5 metres (five feet) thick, double doors and was in complete darkness. No conversation of any type was allowed in the dungeon. The food allowance for prisoners was less than a penny a day including the profit of the warden while any human refuse was removed every four days. After a stay in the dungeon, uncooperative prisoners were moved to the torture chamber.

Torture chambers through history
Throughout history torture chambers have been used in a multiplicity of ways starting from Roman times. Torture chamber use during the Middle Ages was frequent. Religious, social and political persecution led to the widespread use of torture during that time. Torture chambers were also used during the Spanish Inquisition and at the Tower of London.

Another example of a torture chamber, not known by many, is "The Thieves Tower" in the Alsace region of France. Once a tower used for torture, it is now a small museum displaying instruments used upon the prisoners to get them to confess crimes.

In Venice the Palazzo Ducale had its own torture chamber, which was deemed to be of such importance that renovations started in 1507 so that the chamber walls could be kept strong and secure.

Nazi Germany and South America
The traditional torture users of modern times have been dictatorship governments e.g. the Nazis, Argentine military junta (at the Navy School of Mechanics), and the Chilean dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet as well as other South American regimes. These regimes have also used torture chambers. The isolation felt inside the Nazi torture chambers was so strong that author, and victim, K. Zetnik, during his testimony at the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961, has described them as another galaxy.

Europe
Use of torture chambers was also reported in Europe during the Greek military junta years. Alexandros Panagoulis and Army Major Spyros Moustaklis are examples of persons tortured at the EAT/ESA (Greek Military Police) interrogation cell units.

Middle East
Under the reign of Saddam Hussein, he reportedly tortured those whom he deemed as a threat. After the invasion of Iraq by US forces, pictures of dead Iraqis, with their necks slashed, their eyes gouged out and their genitals blackened, were located in many torture chambers. Jail cells, with dried blood on the floor and rusted shackles bolted to the walls, lined the corridors.

In November 2004, US Marines found a number of torture rooms in Fallujah by following trails of dried blood, or the smell of death. Some rooms were hidden behind fake walls, or concealed in basements. Marines believe they found the place where British hostage Kenneth Bigley was caged before being beheaded.

Literature
In George Orwell's famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, Room 101 is a torture chamber.

In Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, Erik (the Phantom's) chamber of torture consisted of a hexagonal room lined with mirrors on each wall. Temperatures vary inside the room, and soon, without food or water, people trapped in there begin having hallucinations. There is an iron tree in there with a lasso under it with which one can commit suicide, which is the only way out.

In the September 1929 issue of Popular Mechanics an article by Harold T. Wilkins titled "Secrets of Ancient Torture Chambers" describes the [fictitious] shrinking torture chamber at the Tolfi castle in Sicily as an example of an ancient torture chamber and proposes a mechanical model to account for the contracting action of the chamber. The shrinking torture chamber at Tolfi castle is described in the short story "The Iron Shroud" by William Mudford.

Film
In film the torture chamber is also known as the chamber of horrors with the word horror implying torture as well as murder or a combination of both. A good example is the torture chamber depicted in the classic horror film The Pit and the Pendulum (1961).

List of chamber related films
Martyr (2008)
 * Chamber of horrors is a 1966 B-movie classic.
 * Hostel is a 2006 movie
 * Cell zero A movie about the Greek Military Police torture chambers
 * The Saw series
 * The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel). A German adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's novel "The Pit and the Pendulum".

Cultural resonance
Aside from its dictionary definition the term has great cultural resonance, because it transforms an abstract concept (Torture) into a real place (Torture chamber), and is an integral part of pop culture. Related exhibits can also be found in places such as Niagara Falls, Las Vegas etc., attracting millions of tourists each year.

Technology
In technology, at Ryerson University, the laboratory used for testing aircraft components has been described as a high-tech torture chamber. Wired Magazine has referred to the laboratory NASA uses to test the next generation of spacecraft as a torture chamber. The McKinley Climatic Laboratory has been described as the world’s largest torture chamber for aircraft undergoing FAA or military certification.

Books

 * The Pleasures of the Torture Chamber. By John Swain. Dial Press London, 1931.
 * Guida Billingue all mostra di Strumenti di Tortura Chamber dal Medioeve all Epoca Industriale.     By Roberto Held. Florence, Qua d' Arno 1983.
 * "The Iron Shroud" by William Mudford, a short story, published also as a chapbook, about an iron torture chamber which shrinks through mechanical action and eventually crushes the victim inside. Edgar Allan Poe is considered to have been influenced by Mudford's story when he wrote The Pit and the Pendulum.