Arlette Coposu
(1915-1965)
Wife of Corneliu Coposu, the leader of the Peasants’ Party. Functionary at the Foreign Ministry.
She was arrested on 13 June 1950 and tried on trumped up charges, accused of spying for France. Sentenced to twenty years hard labour for “complicity in the crime of high treason”, she was not released until 1964.
The after-effects of imprisonment took their toll, and she died two years after her release, in 1966.
Penal registration file:
Corneliu Coposu
(1914-1995)
Secretary of Iuliu Maniu, then deputy general secretary of the National Peasants’ Party.
He was arrested in 1947 and sentenced to fifteen years of hard labour for “intensive activity against the working class”. On the termination of his sentence, in 1962, he was held under house arrest at Rubla, Valea Calmatui.
After his release, he maintained links with his former fellow prisoners, and was kept under permanent surveillance by the Securitate. In spite of this, in 1987 he succeeded in secretly enrolling the National Peasants’ Party in the Christian Democrat International.
After 1989, he was the emblematic leader of the opposition that fought the perpetuation of communist structures and the monopolisation of power by the former nomenclature. His death, on 11 November 1995, was a huge loss for Romanian democracy.
Penal registration file:
