Center for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism

The "Doina Cornea" Foundation decided to set up the Center for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism. The activity of the center will be provided from the foundation's budget, which is mainly based on private donors. The center will be coordinated by archaeologists Marius Oprea and Gheorghe Petrov, according to the RRA correspondent in Cluj, Claudiu Padurean.

Reporter: The "Doinea Cornea" Foundation was created to continue the anti-communist fighting work in Cluj. Already, archaeologists Marius Oprea and Gheorghe Petrov coordinated a research, organized under the support of the foundation, in the cemetery where the former political prisoners killed in the camp in Periprava are buried, according to Gheorghe Petrov.

Gheorghe Petrov: More important is the moral part to recover these bones, to identify them nominally and, where there are relatives, to be given. It is an atrocity that happened everywhere in the penitentiary system and forced labor camps in Romania, it is not an isolated case. They are victims of the regime, the deaths were caused intentionally, / because of / the difficult living conditions.

Reporter: Marius Oprea and Gheorghe Petrov were, until recently, part of the team of the Institute for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism and the Memory of the Romanian Exile.

Translated by: Radu Matei