‘Show the truth about torture’: Romanian ex-prisoners campaign to have former Communist jails preserved

With nostalgia for the Communist era in Romania growing, ex-prisoners of the regime want former jails to become museums to its harsh treatment of dissidents

Niculina Moica heads an association of former political prisoners that has been pushing for Unesco heritage listing for them. The government has pledged to act

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Niculina Moica, 80, detained as a teenager at Jilava prison in Romania under its then Communist regime, stands at the door of an isolation room used to punish political detainees imprisoned there. She is campaigning for the prison to be preserved as a monument. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:15pm, 14 Apr 2024

Niculina Moica felt the weight of history as she pushed open the rusty iron gate to the former Communist prison of Jilava, where she was detained as a teenager.

Jilava is one of 44 prisons and 72 forced labour camps set up under Romania’s Communist regime, in power from 1945 until 1989, to incarcerate more than 150,000 political prisoners, according to the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes.

While some still function as prisons, many of the buildings have been closed and demolished or left derelict.

“It’s a pity, because (Jilava) is a place where you can show the truth about the Communist period. The way prisoners were tortured, kept in such wretched conditions, the food, the cold,” Moica, now 80, says.

A cell at the former Jilava prison in Romania where its Communist regime imprisoned political dissidents. Former prisoners want it preserved as a museum. Photo: AFP

For years she has been fighting to have Jilava turned into a museum before the site further deteriorates, at risk of fading into oblivion.