Water Torture - Other Forms of Water Torture

Other Forms of Water Torture

  • Supposedly, the Rasphuis in Amsterdam, a 17th-century institution that attempted to rehabilitate young male criminals through labor, contained a "water dungeon," the so-called Waterhuis. If prisoners refused to work they were placed in a cellar that quickly filled with water after a sluice was opened, and were handed a pump that enabled them to keep from drowning. Geert Mak and other authors, however, point out that there is no evidence whatsoever for the existence of this room and this punishment.
  • The House of Terror in Budapest, Hungary, shows examples of water torture used by the Nazi and Arrow Cross Parties against the Jews. One involves a sunken cell filled with ice cold water; the prisoner must stand on a tiny metal plinth in the centre of the room. When the prisoner becomes tired or falls asleep, they will fall from the plinth into the icy water.

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