“Adevărul” was the first publication to write on Tuesday, April 23, about the offensive advertisement of Sephora Romania, associated with the terrible Pitesti prison and withdrawn a few hours after the wave of negative reactions. Raluca Turcan, the Minister of Culture, reacted firmly to Sephora's outrageous ad.
Raluca Turcan, Minister of Culture PHOTO Facebook Raluca Turcan
Sephora Romania, the subsidiary of the famous French chain with beauty products and perfumes, posted on Tuesday, April 23, on the Facebook page and on Instagram an offensive advertisement associated with the terrible Pitesti prison, where many prisoners were tortured by the communists. The post was deleted after a few hours.
Specifically, a post appeared on Sephora's Facebook account in which there is a photo with black and white stripes and on which it is written: “Pitesti, I heard you like stripes”. Practically, through this post-advertisement an offensive association was made with the former Pitesti prison, the place where the terrible Pitesti Experiment took place, considered to be the largest and most intensive brainwashing program through torture in the entire communist bloc.
As a result of the numerous negative reactions, Sephora Romania posted the following message on Wednesday, April 24, on Instagram: “Our last post related to the opening of the new Sephora store in Pitesti was interpreted in the wrong way. The black and white horizontal stripes are part of the Sephora brand identity. There is no connection between the Sephora stripes and other events that happened in Pitesti. The Sephora brand has no political color and does not find inspiration in tragic historical events from Romania or from another country. We apologize to the community for this communication error”.
The offensive advertisement posted by Sephora Romania PHOTO Facebook
Raluca Turcan, the Minister of Culture, was notified by “Adevărul” regarding the offensive advertisement of Sephora Romania and offered a firm point of view exclusively for “Adevărul”.
“It probably wasn't intentional, just a display of ignorance and lack of empathy. The Pitesti phenomenon was one of the most brutal experiments put into practice by the communist regime, with the aim of “re-educating” political prisoners, and it can never become a joke. I congratulate you for drawing attention to this incident, I hope that some young people and not only, will learn from this episode. This episode is another reason that reinforces the mission we have assumed at the Ministry of Culture: society be more educated, to have access to culture and quality information, to be able to naturally avoid topics that affect the memory of the victims, and those who were close to them, of one of the most disastrous oppressive periods of Romania”said Raluca Turcan for “Adevărul”.
Maria Axinte, the president of the Pitesti Prison Memorial Foundation, had a harsh reaction, who believes that the post is “an offense to the victims of the Pitesti Phenomenon”.
“The attempt to turn this subject into a “joke” in a marketing campaign is an offense to the victims of the Pitesti Phenomenon, to the activity of our foundation and to the efforts that are being made for the public to truly know the realities of the communist dictatorship in Romania”says Maria Axinte.
In the period 1949-1951, the Pitesti Experiment took place at the Pitesti prison, considered to be the largest and most intensive brainwashing program through torture in the communist bloc. And of the hundreds of prisoners who went through the Pitesti Experiment, only a few are still alive today.
The writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – laureate of the Nobel Prize for literature – believed that the Pitesti experiment was “the most terrible barbarism of the contemporary world”and the historian François Furet, member of the French Academy, considered the Pitesti Phenomenon “one of the most terrible experiences of dehumanization that our age has known”.
Twelve young people died in the Pitesti Experiment and several hundred were tortured. Hundreds of ex-prisoners were left with psychological or physical trauma for life.
