Swamp Camp

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

The Ostrov camp was founded in November 1952 and located in Ostrov, on the right bank of the Danube. It housed both common criminals and political detainees. There were 340 of the latter in 1952, progressing as follows: 200 (1953), 140 (1958), 1148 (1959), 3,632 (1960), 2,593 (1961), 1,945 (1962), 1,482 (1963), and 744 (1964). Between 1952 and 1967, 45 escapes took place; seven detainees drowned in 1955. A typhoid epidemic occurred in September 1956. Under warden Pavel Ion (1952–1953), prisoners were beaten with iron rods and shovels for no reason. Other abuses included killing by shooting and burial alive, keeping detainees undressed and forcing them to enter waist-deep water to cut reeds in winter, chasing them on horseback and trampling them underfoot, forcing them to work naked and stand in freezing water for hours, binding and exposing them to mosquitoes. Corpses were profaned, eaten by rats, thrown into cells. Under Ion, 63 detainees died of torture. Tried alongside six others, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1955 and freed two years later.

In Their Own Story

The Periprava labor camp was located 3 kilometers from Periprava village, in the Danube Delta. Initially a section of the Chilia camp used for cutting reeds, it became a free-standing unit in July 1957, when 200 prisoners from the parent camp were sent to manage the dikes. They were housed in tents until 1958–1959, when rudimentary barracks were built. They were forced to work on building dikes, cutting reeds (exported to West Germany), digging, building a road, farming livestock and crops. The number of prisoners rose after a wave of arrests by the Securitate secret police in 1958. In 1957, the camp held 2,040 or over 5,000 prisoners, depending on the source. The remaining 940 were freed in 1964. There were 400 guards; eleven escapes occurred between 1957 and 1964, two of the fugitives being shot dead. Warden Ion Ficior (1960–1963) was remembered for his particular cruelty; he would keep detainees at the limit of starvation and order savage beatings for those who ate plants they harvested or missed their quotas. Often, two or three prisoners every night and, once half a dozen bodies had accumulated, would be thrown into mass graves.

Reader's Guide

Salcia penal colony was located in Dăeni, on the left bank of the Danube. Founded in April 1952, the detainees were forced to work in several areas: building a dike that would protect farmland from Danube flooding, crop and livestock farming, reed gathering and, most difficult, building yet another dike; the soil was shoveled out carted away by wheelbarrow. The population was composed of both ordinary criminals and political prisoners, held in separate areas. The work quotas were impossible to meet, especially for men who had spent years nearly starving. Failure to meet these was punished by daily beatings; the torture sometimes ended up killing prisoners. In one case, a dead man was placed in solitary confinement; his corpse, partially eaten by rats, was retrieved the following morning. An investigation in 1954 led to prison sentences the following year; those convicted were released after two years. In November–December 1959, some 120 detainees died, mostly under 50 and initially healthy. In March 1956, flooding on the Danube threatened the dike, which prisoners protected for two weeks with their own bodies, in snowy, freezing weather. The dike collapsed in places, burying the protectors alive; 35 guards received minor sentences as a result.

Did You Know?

• Under warden Pavel Ion at Ostrov camp (1952–1953), 63 detainees died of torture; he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1955 and freed two years later.
• At Periprava camp, reeds were cut and exported to West Germany.
• In March 1956 at Salcia camp, prisoners protected a dike with their own bodies for two weeks in snowy, freezing weather; the dike collapsed in places, burying protectors alive.
• At Chilia Veche camp, an internal investigation found warden Nicolae Moromete stole and sold detainees’ food; beatings with truncheons, wet ropes and wire-reinforced belts caused dozens to lose control of their bodily functions.
• At Stoenești camp, in the winter of 1959–1960, food deliveries stopped due to blocked roads and frozen Danube, leading to days without rations while prisoners were still forced to work.