Aiud Prison

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
Opened19th century
Managed byAdministrația Națională a Penitenciarelor
DirectorAdrian Dorel Popa
Street addressStrada Morii, nr. 7-9
Websiteanp.gov.ro/penitenciarul-aiud

History

Early days

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 1889–1892, a T-shaped unit with 312 individual cells was erected.[1]

The interwar and World War II
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.[2]

The Communist era

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.[3]: 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.[4][3]: 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.[2] 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.[5] 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.[2] The total number of prisoner deaths at Aiud from 1945 to 1989 has been put at 782.[6]

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."[7] 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."[8]

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), "work of political diversion that would lead to discord and crushing one another" was necessary.[9] While Ștefan Koller was the prison's commandant, from 1953 to 1958, the conditions were extremely harsh, and over 100 detainees died.[10] Most deaths at Aiud occurred from 1958 to 1964, when the notorious Securitate Colonel Gheorghe Crăciun was in charge.[11]

Current use

The prison is in service today as a "Maximum Security Penitentiary"; as of February 2022, there are 737 detainees at Aiud.[12] 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.[13]

Directors

The directors of Aiud Prison during the communist era were as follows:[14][11][15][6]

  • Major Alexandru Guțan, 1945–1948
  • Major Alexandru Farcaș, 1948–1950
  • Captain Nicolae Dorobanțu, 1950–1953
  • Colonel Ștefan Koller, 1953–1958
  • Colonel Gheorghe Crăciun, 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

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

Cultural representations

In his poem Blestemul Aiudului ("Aiud's Curse"), Radu Gyr evokes the harsh conditions prisoners endured there in the 1950s.[16][17]

References
  1. "Cadru istoric". Martiri Aiud (in Romanian). Retrieved April 24, 2020.
  2. Țârău, Virgiliu; Ciupea, Ioan. "Morții penitenciarului Aiud 1945–1965" (PDF) (in Romanian). Archived from the original (PDF) on September 24, 2015. Retrieved April 24, 2020.
  3. 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.
  4. Hațegan, Ovidiu (December 28, 2006). "Aiud – lagăr de exterminare pentru opozanții sistemului comunist" (in Romanian). HotNews. Retrieved February 5, 2022.
  5. "Recensământul populației concentraționare din România în anii 1945–1989 (date preliminare)" (in Romanian). Retrieved April 18, 2020.
  6. "Torționarii închisorilor României". www.cuvantul-ortodox.ro (in Romanian). March 3, 2013. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
  7. "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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. "Penitenciarul Aiud". anp.gov.ro (in Romanian). Administrația Națională a Penitenciarelor. Retrieved February 5, 2022.
  13. Pau, Andrei (January 20, 2017). "Sala "Petre Țuțea" a Penitenciarului Aiud a fost sfințită". basilica.ro (in Romanian). Retrieved February 10, 2021.
  14. Țimonea, Dorin (March 6, 2013). "Torționarii de la Penitenciarul Aiud: reeducare și teroare în perioada comunistă". Adevărul (in Romanian). Retrieved February 5, 2022.
  15. Cicău, Cristina (October 23, 2013). "Miliția Spirituală: Cinci ardeleni apar pe lista torționarilor din lotul Vișinescu". Transilvania Reporter (in Romanian). Retrieved February 5, 2022.
  16. 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
  17. Gyr, Radu (1994). Poezii. Vol. 3, Lirica orală. Simona Popa. Timișoara: Editura Marineasa. ISBN 973-95729-3-6. OCLC 895664688.
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