The Memorial of the Victims of Communism and of the Resitance

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The Memorial of the Victims of Communism and of the Resistance

Founders: Ana Blandiana and Romulus Rusan

The Memorial to the Victims of Communism and to the Resistance was created and is administered by the Civic Academy Foundation.

The greatest victory of communism, a victory dramatically revealed only after 1989, was to create people without a memory – a brainwashed new man unable to remember what he was, what he had, or what he did before communism.
The creation of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism and to the Resistance is a means of counteracting this victory, a means to resuscitate the collective memory.
Made up of the Sighet Museum and the International Centre for Studies into Communism, based in Bucharest, as well as being the organiser of the Summer School the Memorial is an institution of Memory, unique in that it is simultaneously an institute of research, museography and education.
To the question, “Can memory be relearned?” the answer of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism and to the Resistance in Romania is a resounding “Yes”.

International Center for Studies into Communism

The creation of the Sighet Museum was preceded and then supported by the activity of the International Centre for Studies into Communism. It gathered oral history, as well as collecting, in parallel, documents, photographs, and realia for use in the museum rooms housed in more than fifty-six cells of the former prison.
The Museum, which is often confused with the Memorial, is the creation of the Centre for Studies into Communism.
Created in 1993 by Ana Blandiana and Romulus Rusan, and always short of funds and staff, the Centre managed to renovate and fit out the Museum, and to gather the databank needed to fill it with realistic and credible materials. The Centre has a number of departments, whose activity is described below. It has been concerned with recruiting skilled researchers, many from the younger generation, although it would have wished to employ more staff and in spite of low wages. It has stimulated debate on important topics and unexplored territory, within the framework of symposia, seminars, workshops and round-table discussions.
The prestige of the International Centre for Studies into Communism, which is headed by Romulus Rusan, has been confirmed by the presence in the academic board of researchers of international standing.

Sighet Museum: Room 11 - The Destruction of the Political Parties

Through the destruction of the three traditional Romanian parties (national-peasant, national-liberal and social-democrat), the communists achieved the transfer from a democratic multi-party regime to the dictatorship of the single party, the state-party.
The methods used by the communists for the banning and dissolution of other political parties are illustrated. The exhibited photos and documents sum up the activity of the three parties from their foundation, with emphasis on their later years when they vigorously opposed communism.

Şcoala de Vara de la Sighet: ediţia a XIII-a, 2010

Translation unavailable

În perioada 12-19 iulie a avut loc la Memorialul Victimelor Comunismului şi al Rezistenţei de la Sighet cea de a XIII-a ediţie a Şcolii de Vară, organizată de

Fundaţia Academia Civică
în colaborare şi cu suportul financiar al
Fundaţiei Konrad Adenauer
şi
Ministerului Educaţiei, Cercetării, Tineretului şi Sportului

cu sprijinul Institutului Polonez şi al Ambasadei Franţei în România

Rectorul Şcolii de Vară a fost istoricul Stéphane Courtois
Moderator a fost Romulus Rusan, directorul Centrului Internaţional de Studii asupra Comunismului

Cursurile Şcolii de Vară s-au desfăşurat în sala de conferinţe a Memorialului Victimelor Comunismului şi al Rezistenţei, la Sighetu Marmaţiei, str. Corneliu Coposu, nr.4

Ca să condamnăm comunismul, trebuie să îl cunoaştem: 17 ani de la primul memorial al victimelor comunismului

Sighet Museum: Room 5 - Maps

The Maps Room, the area for reception and orientation of visitors, gives a spatial presentation of the Romanian gulag and a temporal counterpart: a chronology of the forty-five-year history of communist Romania. On a large map of the country, crosses mark sites of imprisonment, forced labour and obligatory residence, psychiatric asylums used for political purposes, places where battles and executions occurred, and mass graves. Each of these categories is presented in detail in six smaller maps. The images of the main communist prisons are exhibited alongside these maps.

Din "marea de amar"

Translation unavailable

Sub acest titlu, inaugurăm o nouă secţiune a site-ului nostru dedicată victimelor comunismului. Vom întâlni povestea vieţii unor oameni care au pătimit pentru credinţa şi caracterul lor. Amnezia din societatea noastră îi condamnă a doua oară aneantizând atât amintirea lor cât şi modelul uman pe care l-au reprezentat.

„Ne-am obişnuit (poate pentru că atâţia ani victimele comunismului au fost uitate, contestate sau chiar hulite) să folosim sobrietatea ştiinţifică şi să evităm abordarea sentimentală a cercetărilor. Acolo unde am găsit documente le-am folosit, acolo unde nu am avut, am preferat să semnalăm lacuna; unde am putut număra victimele am făcut-o; unde nu, am preferat aproximarea ordinului de mărime. Dar, chiar folosind precauţia cea mai drastică pentru a evita riscul exagerării, ne facem vinovaţi faţă de fiecare ins năpăstuit din „marea de amar” (cum ar spune Eminescu), pentru că l-am transformat oricum într-o cifră sau într-o fracţiune de cifră, iar cifrele sunt prin definiţie reci şi distante.

În fiecare atom al acestui univers de suferinţă se ascunde un om, o biografie care trece prin cercurile infernului, dar îşi păstrează gândurile, sentimentele şi memoria proprie.