safe flat (mieszkanie konspiracyjne, MK) and contact premises (lokal kontaktowy, LK)

Premises used by the SB in operational work – for contacts, as secret, base or transit premises; their setting-up, use and closure were documented, as were the people who made them available.

According to the glossary of the IPN Archival Inventory, the LK/MK file was kept on form EO-79/78. It contained, among other things, a questionnaire on the owner (the person with the right to dispose of the flat) with personal details and a CV, the agreement on the use of the flat, a record of payments and costs, lists of people and officers, a description of the conditions, including the cover story for the meetings, and a list of the personal sources of information met there. The premises were given cryptonyms.^1,2

Safe flats were not used only for meetings with secret collaborators. According to the IPN, the SB used the so-called secret pick-up (tajne zdjęcie) – a covert detention of which neither the person's family nor outsiders were aware, with a short spell of confinement away from official places, most often in a safe flat; it was used in recruitment attempts and “warning talks”. The military counterparts were the secret flats and contact premises of the WSW.¹