The Ministry of Culture, through the National Institute of Heritage, has prepared the documents with the scientific and administrative objectives for the completion, in accordance with the requirements, of the registration file of the former communist prisons in the UNESCO World Heritage, announced Minister Raluca Turcan.
In a message posted on his Facebook page on Wednesday, the Minister of Culture announced that “all the five former communist prisons – Sighet, Pitesti, Jilava, Râmnicu Sărat and Făgăraş, representative of the phenomenon of communist oppression, are symbolic places, keeping the memory of the victims of the totalitarian regime”.
“During yesterday, we had an applied discussion regarding the initiation of official steps for their registration in the UNESCO World Heritage. Thus, we ensure that the former communist prisons will not be forgotten, that they will be preserved and enhanced, that they will be maintained over time as spaces of memory, learning and reflection” – said Raluca Turcan.
Wednesday's post follows a promise from last November, when he said that in January 2024 communist prisons would be included in the UNESCO heritage. “Inscription of the former communist prisons into the UNESCO World Heritage represents an obligation on our part 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 from the perspective 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 complete 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 declared last year.
