Description of Suceava prison and conditions of detention

The cells and rooms of the prison, from the basement to the second floor, had wooden floors. The building itself had been constructed by the Austrians during their rule in Bukovina, between 1775 and 1918, and had long served as a place to confine Romanians who demanded freedom. The entire basement consisted of cells, while from the ground floor up to the second floor, one side of each corridor was lined with cells, and the other with rooms measuring between 5 by 10 meters and 10 by 10 meters.

The furnishings were minimal, almost primitive: a straw mat with a thin pad in place of a mattress, a container for physiological needs, and a jug of drinking water. Nothing more—not even a coat hook. The windows were tiny: 40 by 40 centimeters for cells, and about 1.5 by 1 meter for the larger rooms. Each was sealed with thick iron bars.

The containers for water and bodily needs were among the most degrading aspects of imprisonment. Made of pine staves bound with iron hoops, their size and shape varied depending on whether they were used in a cell or a larger room. They were never adequate.

Allow me a digression: what would someone from the Western world say if told that prisoners had endured, not just for days or months, but for 16 years under the communist regime—many of them with an additional seven years during the dictatorships of Carol II and Antonescu—in air permanently poisoned by the stench of urine and faeces? Some might doubt it. To them, I and other survivors would extend an invitation: come and see for yourself. Even today, in Romanian prisons, these crude objects of moral and physical torture can still be found. Let them see the conditions in which thousands of men spent a quarter of their lives.

Here in Australia, where I eventually emigrated, I once visited a prison in Melbourne, Victoria, out of curiosity. Compared with the hell of our Romanian cells, it looked more like a boarding house.

Inside our cells, whenever we used those containers, the air became unbearable. Twice a day—once in the morning and once in the evening—they were emptied into cupboards at the end of the corridor. This was done in strict shifts, so that prisoners could not see or recognize one another.

The doors were massive, built from solid oak and reinforced with thick iron. Each was locked with a heavy deadbolt and a key, then secured again with an additional bar pulled across the top. In the middle of the door, at chest height, there was a peephole about 25 by 15 centimeters, extended inward with a sort of wooden pulpit, like a soldier’s canteen. On the outside, a second bolt reinforced the security.

At eye level, the door had another device that allowed the guard to see in without being seen. The visor could be moved to the left or right so that every corner of the cell was visible to the guard, while the prisoner remained in darkness.

Placement mattered. In Romanian communist prisons, it was not the same to be locked in the basement, the ground floor, or an upper level—or to face east, south, north, or west. In winter, those on the north and east sides froze under relentless winds, while those on the south and west fared slightly better. Punishment cells in the basement were far harsher than those upstairs.

There was a vast difference between confinement in the “Zarcă”—the dark, freezing punishment block—and being housed in the second building of prisons like Gherla or Aiud, where larger rooms were used and the regime was comparatively milder. These sections also held common-law prisoners, who were allowed to work as planters, cooks, barbers, shoemakers, tailors, and in other trades.

Such was the world we endured.

(Dumitru Bordeianu – Confessions from the Swamp of Despair)