crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
Marius Oprea
About ideologies, institutions and death 1
On 24 April 2007, somewhere in Romania eighteen people climbed a mountain in search of the
mortal remains of six youngsters who, it was supposed, had been shot in the head by political police
(Securitate) forces on the night of 19 March 1950. The victims’ only “guilt” was that of having refused
to serve in the army – a fellow citizen, otherwise their friend, informed the Securitate against them. It
was an era of reprisals by the Romanian political police directed especially against the rural population,
in order to somehow “pacify” that segment of society, as well as to assure the state’s share of crops and
the success of the collectivisation process. As a matter of fact, those six youths did not have any guilt in
relation to the regime as such, since they had not manifested hostility, in any way, towards the People’s
Democracy.
That crime captured my attention many years ago – I had investigated the case by means of
archival research already in 1992. At that time, details related to that multiple killing were the subject
of a case file submitted by the Military Prosecutors Office of Cluj (a municipality in the northwestern
part of Romania). However, in the meantime the respective file had been closed due to lack of material
evidence. The decision of the prosecutors in charge: “We can not proceed with the investigation of the
two alleged perpetrators /members of the platoon that executed the six young people/ because we do
not have the mortal remains, we do not have any evidence that the crime was committed, except for
some declarations of villagers and a few concise archival documents.” In the meantime, through the
logistical support of the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania (IICCR) 2 , we
started an expedition to bring the remains of the executed youths’ bodies “to the surface”, so that the
juridical process could finally be pursued. Now we do have valid material proof for that particular crime
committed in the spring of 1950.
I remember that human society was, and still is, highly agitated upon seeing photographs showing
ten thousands of piled-up dead bodies in Nazi concentration camps. It was precisely that terrifying image
of cruel death that made parents who, in one way or another, had been accomplices to the Holocaust,
respond to the question burning on the tips of their children’s tongues: “And you, where were you
at that time?” In my opinion, this was practically how the social debate around the issue of who was
to blame for the crimes of Nazism was initiated during the 1960’s and 1970’s. I truly believe that a
similar process will take place in Romania when it comes to crimes of communism. The moment will
come when, for example, my son will ask me: “And you, where were you when all that happened?”
Nonetheless, it will take considerable time before the necessary information about the full criminal
nature of the communist regime in Romania will have been accumulated. It may take years, first having
not only registered testimony from former political prisoners, but also having a considerable number of
penal cases filed, on the basis of which former Securitate officers and activists of the Communist Party
can be summoned.
It is just a beginning. You may argue: how could you reasonably take legal proceedings against
the crimes of an entire regime, on the basis of the mortal remains of six executed individuals? I repeat:
this is only a beginning. 3 The power of the case described above lies in its ‘exemplary function’ – a
model for what is possible and for how we should act in the future. The testimony already recorded is
staggering. As a matter of fact, we are not speaking about simple testimony in terms of transcribed oral
histories, but about declarations of witnesses before criminal investigation officers who participated
in the exhumation expedition. The dead bodies of the six youngsters were buried by their parents.
1
Translation of an adapted version of the essay “Despre ideologii, institutii si moarte” in Cǎietele Echinox, Gulag şi Holocaust, vol. 13,
Cluj 2007.
2
The IICCR was established in January 2006 with Government Decree No. 1724/2005 as its legal basis. The author of this article is
President of the Institute.
3
Until now, the IICCR has undertaken several investigative missions which included the location, exhumation and identification of mortal
remains of the communist regime’s victims. In March 2007, for example, experts of the Institute together with representatives of the
Military Prosecutor’s Office located the places where are possibly buried the corpses of former political detainees who were kept in labor
camps situated in the region Insula Mare a Brailei (southeast Romania) and died in the 1950’s. A number of similar special investigative
missions is planned to take place in the summer and fall of 2008.
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