Sighet
If you have not yet been to Sighetu Marmatiei, then you simply must put a visit on your next vacation itinerary. Formerly home to a notorious communist prison, it now hosts a memorial museum about horrible things Romanians had to endure.
It is easily the best museum in all of Romania, on any topic, with an enormous body of materials, remnants, photos, letters, raw original documents, and detailed historiography of the events before and during those years.
It would be difficult to think of any other museum throughout all of central and eastern Europe which matches the depth and quality of this facility. You owe yourself a visit.
Don’t worry about getting upset. You’ll find others inside the museum who are unable to stop the tears from streaming down their cheeks as they come face-to-face with the harsh reality and the real people.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:11 am
This is a very valuable lesson and one not well known in the western world. Very sad.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:10 am
I told you you’d be impressed. The last room where they show the public face of Ceausescu (with Nixon, with the Queen, etc) interspersed with the pictures of bread queues and deprivation was fantastic.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Brings back emotions that I though were long forgotten (maybe because never forgiven). Sad to see in the picture Henriette Yvonne Stahl, one of my favorite writers – blacklisted for utterly stupid reasons, just like the majority of those people.
July 26th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
if its yet another holocaust museum, thanks but no thanks. when is there going to be a museum about the suffering of romanians at the hands of the mongols, turks, russians, hungarians, etc
July 31st, 2007 at 12:11 am
romanians did suffer, i guess, if this is what andrew is trying to say, but in a so called civilized world the communism was a major mistake. the way it was applied here was horrible. people “dissapearing” just like that and being killed like they’re worth nothing? it is still an open wound for some, fills you with pain for something that has happend but is no more.
August 6th, 2007 at 7:05 am
I have been to this museum. I am not a very emotional guy, but I had to step outside and get some fresh air after being in there for a while. I think the thing that got to me the most was the nets meant to keep potential suicides from jumping off the balcony outside thier cells. And that crazed up painting of “conductorul”.
Great site. Am fost in Romania de trei ori, si vara asta studiez romaneste la Indiana University. Abia astept sa revin in Romania.
December 18th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Devils incarnate, acting under the mask of communistic evil doctrines.
May God bring His justice upon them, and heal the souls traumatized by their brutality.
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Sighet is just a great place, period. I didn’t get to see the separate museum in the town center, but the actual prison is as impressive as everyone notes. I first visited it in 1996, when Alianta Civica was first organizing it as a memorial and historical research project. I think they had maybe 3-4 people operating the thing and I got a tour of it from the local AC rep with whom my contacts in Bucharest put me in touch. The stories they told were staggering. I wish I could remember them all. I think the room where they confined Iuliu Maniu hit me the hardest.
The other thing is, IIRC, Sighet is only 20 km or so from Sapantsa and the Cimitirul Vesel (the Merry Cemetery). Worth a bus or taxi ride down to the cemetery. I ended up going there twice, the second time on a lark from meeting people on the train, such that we spent New Year’s in really cold weather in Sapanta. Nothing like going to church the next morning with your friends when you have a doozy of a palinca-and-wine-fueled hangover… ;) Such beautiful traditional dress worn by the taranii in the church, btw.
In fact, Maramures is easily my favorite judet in Romania. And not just because they have the best palinca! ;-) Between the wooden churches, the carved wooden gates, the scenery to die for, and especially the fire of the people there…Maramures just plain rocks!