The cell block of the former prison

“Resurrection. A tribute to the political prisoner”, by Camilian Demetrescu, in the background.

On the walls, a graphic picture: the translation in 33 languages of verse 32 of chapter 8 in the Gospel of John: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”

“A tribute to the political prisoner”, by Camilian Demetrescu

“A tribute to the political prisoner”, by Camilian Demetrescu

The founders of the Sighet Memorial, work by Alina Enache, in memory of Romulus Rusan

Overall view of the History of the Memorial’s Permanent Exhibiton, basement exhibition space

The motto of the Sighet Memorial is: “When justice fails to be a form of memory, memory alone can be a form of justice.” As the Memorial is not a path towards the past, but one towards the present, the discoveries of the past are important to the extent to which they can help us understand its residues in the present. There is no freedom without justice, and there is no justice without memory.

The resurrection of memory is the most efficient defence against the toxins which a totalitarian society, even when defeated, continues to spread, like the severed head of the Medusa. All totalitarian societies are occult, hidden, secret, they cannot be defeated for good unless by revealing all truths. And for that, we need to remember.

Ana Blandiana

Overall view of the History of the Memorial’s Permanent Exhibiton, basement exhibition space

Detail from the History of the Memorial’s Permanent Exhibiton, underground exhibition space

Overall view of the Gallery of former political prisoners and deportees

Gallery of former political prisoners and deportees, seen from the 1st floor of the Cell Block

This space was designed as a place of recollection and meditation for visitors, after they have seen the horrors of Communist repression in the museum. The theme of the competition was a phrase that can be read in all memoirs of imprisonment: “I would not have resisted had I not believed in God.”

The winning project belonged to Timișoara architect Radu Mihăilescu.

In the inner courtyard, an underground chapel was built, with an overhanging impluvium, combining the ancient style (of the Greek tholos and of the Christian catacomb) and the modern vision.

Both the competition and the implementation of the winning architectural design were made possible with the financial support of Mr Mişu Cârciog, a Romanian diplomat before the war, who later became a businessman in Britain.

The Sighet Memorial, view of inner courtyards

The Sighet Memorial, view of the mirador

The Sighet Memorial, view of inner courtyards

Entrance to The Space for Prayer and Recollection, inner courtyard 1

The cross, cut out in the centre of the dome, allows daylight to be filtered by the veil of water in a candle basin, and, on sunny days, projects several crosses of light on the walls.

Detail of the cross cut out in the centre of the dome, view from above the chapel

12 apple trees are planted on top of the chapel.

Detail of the cross cut out in the centre of the dome, view from above the chapel

The walls to the ramp descending in the underground space were engraved, on smoky andesite, with the names of nearly eight thousand people dead in the prisons, labour camps and deportation places in Romania, plus other 16,000 names written on andesite slabs, mounted in the inner courtyard wall and in the Paupers’ Cemetery.

The painstaking task of collecting the names of the dead required years of work within the International Centre for Studies into Communism, and the number is far from covering the true extent of the repression.

“The two inner courtyards were connected by a corridor approximately four meters wide, and the entrance door in the main body of the building would open in this corridor.(…) the large inner courtyard to its right, as you face the entrance door, and the small one to the left. In the larger courtyard we found a water pump, no longer functional, and a small shed made of planks, attached to the inside wall on the west… In the southwestern corner of the courtyard, elevated on a strong fir tree trunk and leaning against the two inside walls, there was, at a height of approximately six meters, a ‘mirador’, that is, a shelter for the sentinel watching, on this side, both the prison windows, and the courtyard”.

Constantin C. Giurescu

Image of The Cortege of the Sacrificial Victims, inner courtyard 2

Image of The Cortege of the Sacrificial Victims, inner courtyard 2

Aurel Vlad’s Cortege of the Sacrificial Victims, the statue group in the second inner courtyard, became, over time, the Memorial’s symbol-image.

It is the place of choice for hundreds and thousands of tourists to take a photo when passing through the Memorial.

The Cortege of the Sacrificial Victims, statue group by Aurel Vlad

The Paupers’ Cemetery, an integrant part of the Sighet Memorial, is an architectural ensemble dedicated to the memory of the political prisoners who died or were executed in the communist prisons and labour camps or as deportees, and also to the memory of the partisans who were killed in battles with the Securitate. The cemetery lies 2.5 km from the Memorial, as you leave Sighet.

In the ‘50s, this was the place where the bodies of a few dozens of the political prisoners dead in the Sighet prison were thrown in unmarked graves.

Image of The Paupers’ Cemetery

The Paupers’ Cemetery was transformed into a park of memory. The outline of Romania has been traced using fir trees, and in the place where Sighet is on the map a Byzantine cross and altar-cenotaph were erected.

Image of The Paupers’ Cemetery

In the niche beneath the altar dozens of urns containing earth from the various prisons, labour camps, deportation centres, and places of execution have been laid.

Image of The Paupers’ Cemetery

The ensemble also includes a few dozen andesite plaques carved with the names of Romanian citizens who died in the deportations to the Soviet Union. They complete the names of those who died in the prisons and labour camps, a part of which are inscribed on the plaques in the courtyard of the Memorial.

Image of The Paupers’ Cemetery