Raluca Turcan: "The former communist prisons will be included in the UNESCO list"

The former communist prisons will be included at the beginning of next year in Romania's Indicative List for UNESCO World Heritage, Raluca Turcan, the Minister of Culture, said yesterday at an event held at the National Museum of the "Dimitrie Gusti" Village.

Raluca Turcan said. "Inscription in the UNESCO World Heritage of the former communist prisons represents our obligation as decision-makers of the Romanian state to recognize a wound in Romania's recent history and a wound in world history. The former communist prisons correspond in terms of identity and significance to the objectives included in the UNESCO World Heritage. Right from the first days of my mandate, I followed the classification of the Pitesti prison, the Pitesti Memorial in the historical monument category, to complement the other prisons that were classified as historical monuments. Together with the team of specialists from the National Institute of Heritage, we are preparing the file so that, in January, these former communist prisons will be included in Romania's Indicative List for UNESCO World Heritage".

The Minister of Culture recalled that in the prisons of Făgăraş, Pitesti, Râmnicu Sărat and Fortul 13 Jilava, people who campaigned for freedom, individual rights, democracy, respect for those around them and equal treatment were destroyed by torture.

Mrs. Turcan specified: "There are four prisons where people who campaigned for freedom, for individual rights, for democracy, for respect for those around them and equal treatment were simply - it's hard for me to find the word more characteristic of what happened there - they were destroyed. If they were not destroyed physically, they were destroyed for life mentally, because of the torture they were subjected to. (...) And I would conclude this confession about a project that I care about, by telling you the answer that those we talk to from the prisons gave me when I asked how it was possible. And the answer was: uneducated people, rudimentary people who reached important positions. And, I think that for the young generation this is an emblematic message that they should hear as much as possible, and that's why I want these former prisons to become museum institutions and to tell those who didn't live those times what it could have happened in a European country not too long ago".

The Minister of Culture has shown that he is preparing two more files, Brâncusi and Limes, for inclusion in Romania's Indicative List for UNESCO World Heritage.