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Aiud Prison

January 01, 1970

Aiud Prison is a prison complex in Aiud, Alba County, located in central Transylvania, Romania. It is infamous for the treatment of its political inmates, especially during World War II under the rule of Ion Antonescu, and later under the Communist regime.

Aiud Prison
LocationAiud, Alba County, Romania
Coordinates46°18′48.5″N 23°43′38.14″E / 46.313472°N 23.7272611°E / 46.313472; 23.7272611
Opened19th century
Managed byAdministrația Națională a Penitenciarelor
DirectorAdrian Dorel Popa
Street addressStrada Morii, nr. 7-9
Websiteanp.gov.ro/penitenciarul-aiud

History edit

Early days edit

The first mention of the structure dates from 1786. From 1839 to 1849 it served as prison next to the Aiud court of law. After being devastated by fire in January 1849, a new prison was built in 1857, and completed in 1860. An isolation unit, named Zarca (from the Hungarian zárka, meaning solitary), was added in 1881–1882. Finally, between 1889 and 1892, a T-shaped unit with 312 individual cells was erected.[1] Gheorghe Șincai was a prisoner at Aiud in 1794–1795.[2]

The interwar and World War II edit

 
Watchtower at Aiud Prison

During the period 1926–1943, some 143 Communist activists were imprisoned at Aiud peninteciary. Moreover, after the defeat of the Legionnaires' rebellion in 1941, Iron Guard members were also detained there. The largest number of political prisoners held at Aiud during the war occurred at the end of 1944, when 851 inmates had been found guilty of political crimes and 6 were suspected of having committed such offenses.[3]

The Communist era edit

Together with the prisons at Sighet, Gherla, and Râmnicu Sărat, the Aiud penitentiary was the most important and the harshest place of detention for political prisoners in Communist Romania.[4]: 73  Political prisoners were detained at this facility from 1945 all the way up to the Romanian Revolution of 1989. In 1945 there were only 164 inmates left at Aiud; by the end of 1946 there were 345 inmates condemned of political crimes and 93 accused of such crimes. Those numbers increased in 1947 to 256 and 346, and in 1948 to 889 and 1,269, respectively. Overall, in the first 4 years after the war, authorities incarcerated at Aiud Prison 2,405 condemned individuals and 1,683 indicted individuals.[5][4]: 79 

From October 1948 to November 1949, more than 4,000 political prisoners were brought to Aiud Prison, while in the early 1950s the annual rate was above 2,000.[3] According to a study done by the International Centre for Studies into Communism, 16.2% of all political prisoners in Communist Romania did some time at Aiud.[6] From 1945 to 1965 there were 563 deaths registered at the prison, peaking in 1947, 1950, and 1961 at 110, 81, and 49, respectively. These deaths were mostly due to typhus, cold weather, lack of medical care, malnutrition, and solitary detention at the Zarca.[3] The total number of prisoner deaths at Aiud from 1945 to 1989 has been put at 782.[7]

A CIA report from January 1954 observes: "Aiud Prison is one of the largest and harshest in Rumania. No letters or packages from home are allowed political prisoners, except that they are occasionally allowed to write home for winter clothing. [...] Punishment consists of confinement in the "reserve," a box almost without air; forced labor; or labor on the famous Danube–Black Sea Canal."[8] In his memoirs, Give us each day our daily prison, Ion Ioanid recounts the 12 years he spent in the prisons and labor camps of Communist Romania. He notes that Aiud's isolation from the outside world was the most severe, and states: "Its reputation was well established. The prison of all prisons. It became a symbol. The Holy of Holies."[9]

In 1951, two of the detainees, Mircea Vulcănescu and Nicolae Mărgineanu, planned a mass escape of the prisoners, so that, once they were free, they would contact the anti-communist resistance in the mountains. However, not all the detainees agreed, and in late December, only three of them—aviators Tudor Greceanu [ro] and Gheorghe Spulbatu [ro] and journalist Valeriu Șirianu—managed to escape; caught soon after, the latter two were subsequently executed.[10]

From 1945 to 1948, the director of Aiud Prison was Alexandru Guțan; during his tenure, the first re-education program in Communist Romania took place there. According to his testimony (available in the archives of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives [ro]), "work of political diversion that would lead to discord and crushing one another" was necessary.[11] While Ștefan Koller was the prison's commandant, from 1953 to 1958, the conditions were extremely harsh, and over 100 detainees died.[12] Most deaths at Aiud occurred from 1958 to 1964, when the notorious Securitate Colonel Gheorghe Crăciun [ro] was in charge.[13]

Current use edit

The prison is in service today as a "Maximum Security Penitentiary"; as of February 2022, there are 737 detainees at Aiud.[14] In 2017, a hall in the penitentiary was dedicated to the memory of one of the political prisoners from the communist period, Petre Țuțea; the hall is a space intended for educational and psychosocial assistance activities in support of current inmates.[15]

Directors edit

The directors of Aiud Prison during the communist era were as follows:[16][13][17][7]

  • Major Alexandru Guțan, 1945–1948
  • Major Alexandru Farcaș, 1948–1950
  • Captain Nicolae Dorobanțu, 1950–1953
  • Colonel Ștefan Koller, 1953–1958
  • Colonel Gheorghe Crăciun [ro], November 1958–December 31, 1964
  • Colonel Iorgu Volcescu, 1965–1973
  • Colonel Traian Moldovan, 1973–1978
  • Lt. Colonel Mihai Damian, 1978–1981
  • Colonel Vasile Rus, December 1, 1981–April 1, 1987
  • Colonel Vasile Țârtan, April 1, 1987–April 26, 1991

Notable inmates edit

This is a partial list of notable inmates of Aiud Prison; the symbol † indicates those who died there.

Cultural representations edit

In his poem Blestemul Aiudului ("Aiud's Curse"), Radu Gyr evokes the harsh conditions prisoners endured there in the 1950s.[18][19]

References edit

  1. ^ "Cadru istoric". Martiri Aiud (in Romanian). Retrieved April 24, 2020.
  2. ^ "Gheorghe Șincai". cultura.inmures.ro. Retrieved January 25, 2024.
  3. ^ a b c Țârău, Virgiliu; Ciupea, Ioan. (PDF) (in Romanian). Archived from the original (PDF) on September 24, 2015. Retrieved April 24, 2020.
  4. ^ a b Muraru, Andrei (2008). Dicționarul penitenciarelor din România comunistă: 1945–1967 (in Romanian). Institutul de Investigare a Crimelor Comunismului în România. Iași: Polirom. ISBN 978-973-46-0893-5. OCLC 297531689.
  5. ^ Hațegan, Ovidiu (December 28, 2006). "Aiud – lagăr de exterminare pentru opozanții sistemului comunist" (in Romanian). HotNews. Retrieved February 5, 2022.
  6. ^ "Recensământul populației concentraționare din România în anii 1945–1989 (date preliminare)" (in Romanian). Retrieved April 18, 2020.
  7. ^ a b "Torționarii închisorilor României". www.cuvantul-ortodox.ro (in Romanian). March 3, 2013. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
  8. ^ (PDF). Central Intelligence Agency. 11 January 1954. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 23, 2017. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  9. ^ Ioanid, Ion (2013). Închisoarea noastră cea de toate zilele. Editia a III-a. Vol. I. Bucharest, Romania: Editura Humanitas. p. 473. ISBN 978-973-50-4203-5.
  10. ^ Iancu, Mariana (December 8, 2018). "Poveștile extraordinare ale evadaților din teroarea închisorilor comuniste române". Adevărul (in Romanian). Retrieved April 25, 2024.
  11. ^ Ionescu, Arleen (January 2022). "Makarenko's and Țurcanu's Re-Education Projects: Debunking a Myth in Romanian Historiography". Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas. 20 (1): 1–26. doi:10.1353/pan.2022.0004. S2CID 245849120.
  12. ^ Iancu, Mariana (November 17, 2018). "Poveștile torționarilor care au semănat groaza în temnițele comuniste: au bătut, au ucis și au trăit regește după Revoluție". Adevărul (in Romanian). Retrieved February 5, 2022.
  13. ^ a b Găină, Ramona (June 19, 2013). "Cei mai temuți șefi ai Securității – colonelul Gheorghe Crăciun, despre care se spune că ar fi inventat carcera de 60/60 de centimetri căptușită cu cuie". Adevărul (in Romanian). Retrieved February 5, 2022.
  14. ^ "Penitenciarul Aiud". anp.gov.ro (in Romanian). Administrația Națională a Penitenciarelor. Retrieved February 5, 2022.
  15. ^ Pau, Andrei (January 20, 2017). "Sala "Petre Țuțea" a Penitenciarului Aiud a fost sfințită". basilica.ro (in Romanian). Retrieved February 10, 2021.
  16. ^ Țimonea, Dorin (March 6, 2013). "Torționarii de la Penitenciarul Aiud: reeducare și teroare în perioada comunistă". Adevărul (in Romanian). Retrieved February 5, 2022.
  17. ^ Cicău, Cristina (October 23, 2013). "Miliția Spirituală: Cinci ardeleni apar pe lista torționarilor din lotul Vișinescu". Transilvania Reporter (in Romanian). Retrieved February 5, 2022.
  18. ^ Uceanu-Petrache, Maria-Cosmina (2020), "The Mute Voice of Communist Fears", Language and Literature – European Landmarks of Identity (PDF), University of Pitești Press, pp. 95–100
  19. ^ Gyr, Radu (1994). Poezii. Vol. 3, Lirica orală. Simona Popa. Timișoara: Editura Marineasa. ISBN 973-95729-3-6. OCLC 895664688.

External links edit

  • Tudor Gheorghe – Aiudule, Aiudule on YouTube. Tudor Gheorghe interprets the poem Blestemul Aiudului (Aiud's Curse) at the 2005 concert Cu Iisus în Celulă [ro] (With Jesus in the Cell).

January 01, 1970
aiud, prison, prison, complex, aiud, alba, county, located, central, transylvania, romania, infamous, treatment, political, inmates, especially, during, world, under, rule, antonescu, later, under, communist, regime, locationaiud, alba, county, romaniacoordina. Aiud Prison is a prison complex in Aiud Alba County located in central Transylvania Romania It is infamous for the treatment of its political inmates especially during World War II under the rule of Ion Antonescu and later under the Communist regime Aiud PrisonLocationAiud Alba County RomaniaCoordinates46 18 48 5 N 23 43 38 14 E 46 313472 N 23 7272611 E 46 313472 23 7272611Opened19th centuryManaged byAdministrația Națională a PenitenciarelorDirectorAdrian Dorel PopaStreet addressStrada Morii nr 7 9Websiteanp wbr gov wbr ro wbr penitenciarul aiud Contents 1 History 1 1 Early days 1 2 The interwar and World War II 1 3 The Communist era 1 4 Current use 2 Directors 3 Notable inmates 4 Cultural representations 5 References 6 External linksHistory editEarly days edit The first mention of the structure dates from 1786 From 1839 to 1849 it served as prison next to the Aiud court of law After being devastated by fire in January 1849 a new prison was built in 1857 and completed in 1860 An isolation unit named Zarca from the Hungarian zarka meaning solitary was added in 1881 1882 Finally between 1889 and 1892 a T shaped unit with 312 individual cells was erected 1 Gheorghe Șincai was a prisoner at Aiud in 1794 1795 2 The interwar and World War II edit nbsp Watchtower at Aiud Prison During the period 1926 1943 some 143 Communist activists were imprisoned at Aiud peninteciary Moreover after the defeat of the Legionnaires rebellion in 1941 Iron Guard members were also detained there The largest number of political prisoners held at Aiud during the war occurred at the end of 1944 when 851 inmates had been found guilty of political crimes and 6 were suspected of having committed such offenses 3 The Communist era edit Together with the prisons at Sighet Gherla and Ramnicu Sărat the Aiud penitentiary was the most important and the harshest place of detention for political prisoners in Communist Romania 4 73 Political prisoners were detained at this facility from 1945 all the way up to the Romanian Revolution of 1989 In 1945 there were only 164 inmates left at Aiud by the end of 1946 there were 345 inmates condemned of political crimes and 93 accused of such crimes Those numbers increased in 1947 to 256 and 346 and in 1948 to 889 and 1 269 respectively Overall in the first 4 years after the war authorities incarcerated at Aiud Prison 2 405 condemned individuals and 1 683 indicted individuals 5 4 79 From October 1948 to November 1949 more than 4 000 political prisoners were brought to Aiud Prison while in the early 1950s the annual rate was above 2 000 3 According to a study done by the International Centre for Studies into Communism 16 2 of all political prisoners in Communist Romania did some time at Aiud 6 From 1945 to 1965 there were 563 deaths registered at the prison peaking in 1947 1950 and 1961 at 110 81 and 49 respectively These deaths were mostly due to typhus cold weather lack of medical care malnutrition and solitary detention at the Zarca 3 The total number of prisoner deaths at Aiud from 1945 to 1989 has been put at 782 7 A CIA report from January 1954 observes Aiud Prison is one of the largest and harshest in Rumania No letters or packages from home are allowed political prisoners except that they are occasionally allowed to write home for winter clothing Punishment consists of confinement in the reserve a box almost without air forced labor or labor on the famous Danube Black Sea Canal 8 In his memoirs Give us each day our daily prison Ion Ioanid recounts the 12 years he spent in the prisons and labor camps of Communist Romania He notes that Aiud s isolation from the outside world was the most severe and states Its reputation was well established The prison of all prisons It became a symbol The Holy of Holies 9 In 1951 two of the detainees Mircea Vulcănescu and Nicolae Mărgineanu planned a mass escape of the prisoners so that once they were free they would contact the anti communist resistance in the mountains However not all the detainees agreed and in late December only three of them aviators Tudor Greceanu ro and Gheorghe Spulbatu ro and journalist Valeriu Șirianu managed to escape caught soon after the latter two were subsequently executed 10 From 1945 to 1948 the director of Aiud Prison was Alexandru Guțan during his tenure the first re education program in Communist Romania took place there According to his testimony available in the archives of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives ro work of political diversion that would lead to discord and crushing one another was necessary 11 While Ștefan Koller was the prison s commandant from 1953 to 1958 the conditions were extremely harsh and over 100 detainees died 12 Most deaths at Aiud occurred from 1958 to 1964 when the notorious Securitate Colonel Gheorghe Crăciun ro was in charge 13 Current use edit The prison is in service today as a Maximum Security Penitentiary as of February 2022 there are 737 detainees at Aiud 14 In 2017 a hall in the penitentiary was dedicated to the memory of one of the political prisoners from the communist period Petre Țuțea the hall is a space intended for educational and psychosocial assistance activities in support of current inmates 15 Directors editThe directors of Aiud Prison during the communist era were as follows 16 13 17 7 Major Alexandru Guțan 1945 1948 Major Alexandru Farcaș 1948 1950 Captain Nicolae Dorobanțu 1950 1953 Colonel Ștefan Koller 1953 1958 Colonel Gheorghe Crăciun ro November 1958 December 31 1964 Colonel Iorgu Volcescu 1965 1973 Colonel Traian Moldovan 1973 1978 Lt Colonel Mihai Damian 1978 1981 Colonel Vasile Rus December 1 1981 April 1 1987 Colonel Vasile Țartan April 1 1987 April 26 1991Notable inmates editThis is a partial list of notable inmates of Aiud Prison the symbol indicates those who died there Horia Agarici Wolf von Aichelburg de Aurel Aldea Bartolomeu Anania Constantin Anghelache Ioan Arbore Emil Bodnăraș Szilard Bogdanffy Ilie Borz ro Sorin Bottez Traian Brăileanu Harry Brauner Radu Budișteanu Constantin Bușilă ro Emil Calmanovici Corneliu Calotescu George Matei Cantacuzino Ion Caraion Ion Carja Ștefan Carjan Ioan Carlaonț Radu Cioculescu ro Radu Ciuceanu Alexandru Claudian Vladimir Constantinescu Dumitru Coroamă Nichifor Crainic Gheorghe A Cuza ro Sergiu Dan Ion Diaconescu Ioan Dumitrache Constantin Eftimiu Gheorghe Eminescu Ilarion Felea Radu Filipescu Gheorghe Flondor Valeriu Gafencu Constantin Gane Toma Ghițulescu Victor Gomoiu Tudor Greceanu ro Radu Gyr Pan Halippa Traian Herseni Iosif Iacobici ro Ion Ioanid Modest Isopescu George Ivașcu Gheorghe Koslinski ro Radu Lecca Vasile Luca Horia Macellariu Nicolae Macici Gheorghe Manoliu Gheorghe Manu ro Socrat Mardari ro Nicolae Mărgineanu Ion Marian Ion C Marinescu Istrate Micescu Radu Mironovici Ioan Mocsony Starcea ro Gabriel Negrei Petru Nemoianu Gheron Netta ro Constantin Nicolescu Alexandru Nicolschi Vasile Noveanu Gavril Olteanu Nicolae Păiș Gherman Pantea Arsenie Papacioc ro Iustin Parvu ro I Peltz Constantin Petrovicescu Ion Petrovici N Porsenna Ion Sichitiu ro Gheorghe Șincai Virgil Solomon Gheorghe Spulbatu ro Dumitru Stăniloae Gheorghe Stavrescu ro Nicolae Steinhardt Paul Sterian Păstorel Teodoreanu Constant Tonegaru Ioan Topor ro Constantin Trestioreanu ro Sandu Tudor Petre Țuțea Ștefana Velisar Teodoreanu Mircea Vulcănescu Cultural representations editIn his poem Blestemul Aiudului Aiud s Curse Radu Gyr evokes the harsh conditions prisoners endured there in the 1950s 18 19 Aiudule Aiudule temniță cruntă fă te zăludule piatră măruntă Focul mănace te că nu te saturi Mereu vrei scancete și bei oftaturi Aiud Aiud you horrible blunder please be so good as to crumble asunder Flow down into gravel Burn into ashes May that stop your feasting on anguish and gnashes References edit Cadru istoric Martiri Aiud in Romanian Retrieved April 24 2020 Gheorghe Șincai cultura inmures ro Retrieved January 25 2024 a b c Țarău Virgiliu Ciupea Ioan Morții penitenciarului Aiud 1945 1965 PDF in Romanian Archived from the original PDF on September 24 2015 Retrieved April 24 2020 a b Muraru Andrei 2008 Dicționarul penitenciarelor din Romania comunistă 1945 1967 in Romanian Institutul de Investigare a Crimelor Comunismului in Romania Iași Polirom ISBN 978 973 46 0893 5 OCLC 297531689 Hațegan Ovidiu December 28 2006 Aiud lagăr de exterminare pentru opozanții sistemului comunist in Romanian HotNews Retrieved February 5 2022 Recensămantul populației concentraționare din Romania in anii 1945 1989 date preliminare in Romanian Retrieved April 18 2020 a b Torționarii inchisorilor Romaniei www cuvantul ortodox ro in Romanian March 3 2013 Retrieved February 6 2022 Information Report Rumania Aiud Prison PDF Central Intelligence Agency 11 January 1954 Archived from the original PDF on January 23 2017 Retrieved 26 April 2020 Ioanid Ion 2013 Inchisoarea noastră cea de toate zilele Editia a III a Vol I Bucharest Romania Editura Humanitas p 473 ISBN 978 973 50 4203 5 Iancu Mariana December 8 2018 Poveștile extraordinare ale evadaților din teroarea inchisorilor comuniste romane Adevărul in Romanian Retrieved April 25 2024 Ionescu Arleen January 2022 Makarenko s and Țurcanu s Re Education Projects Debunking a Myth in Romanian Historiography Partial Answers Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 20 1 1 26 doi 10 1353 pan 2022 0004 S2CID 245849120 Iancu Mariana November 17 2018 Poveștile torționarilor care au semănat groaza in temnițele comuniste au bătut au ucis și au trăit regește după Revoluție Adevărul in Romanian Retrieved February 5 2022 a b Găină Ramona June 19 2013 Cei mai temuți șefi ai Securității colonelul Gheorghe Crăciun despre care se spune că ar fi inventat carcera de 60 60 de centimetri căptușită cu cuie Adevărul in Romanian Retrieved February 5 2022 Penitenciarul Aiud anp gov ro in Romanian Administrația Națională a Penitenciarelor Retrieved February 5 2022 Pau Andrei January 20 2017 Sala Petre Țuțea a Penitenciarului Aiud a fost sfințită basilica ro in Romanian Retrieved February 10 2021 Țimonea Dorin March 6 2013 Torționarii de la Penitenciarul Aiud reeducare și teroare in perioada comunistă Adevărul in Romanian Retrieved February 5 2022 Cicău Cristina October 23 2013 Miliția Spirituală Cinci ardeleni apar pe lista torționarilor din lotul Vișinescu Transilvania Reporter in Romanian Retrieved February 5 2022 Uceanu Petrache Maria Cosmina 2020 The Mute Voice of Communist Fears Language and Literature European Landmarks of Identity PDF University of Pitești Press pp 95 100 Gyr Radu 1994 Poezii Vol 3 Lirica orală Simona Popa Timișoara Editura Marineasa ISBN 973 95729 3 6 OCLC 895664688 External links editTudor Gheorghe Aiudule Aiudule on YouTube Tudor Gheorghe interprets the poem Blestemul Aiudului Aiud s Curse at the 2005 concert Cu Iisus in Celulă ro With Jesus in the Cell Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Aiud Prison amp oldid 1220925482, wikipedia, wiki, book, 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