Sighet Museum: Room 70 – The Memory of Manuscripts

In the vocabulary of the communist justice system, “hostile written texts” were among the most serious corpora delicti. To be discovered with a hostile manuscript (be it a book, a letter, or a manifesto) was tantamount to being a “class enemy”, a “suspicious element” or even a “machinator against the social order.”
This is why we have grouped together a few such testimonies to the dignity of former political prisoners. These were either confiscated or circulated clandestinely; they were either used in evidence against their authors or marked their fate in the prisons. They are linked by that purity of expressions that is the mark of true literature.
The Sighet Memorial has the honour to present several masterpieces as manuscripts:
„Jurnalul Fericirii” (The Diary of Happiness) by N. Steinhardt
„Testamentul din morgă” (Testament from the Morgue) by Remus Radina
„Așteptând ceasul de apoi” (Awaiting the Final Hour) by Dinu Pillat
„Drumul Crucii” (The Road of the Cross) by Aurel State
„Tortura, pe înțelesul tuturor” (Torture Made Understandable to All) by Florin Constantin Pavlovici
„Istoria P.N.Ţ.” (The History of the National Peasant Party) by Ioan Marta,
as well as important letters written by Gheorghe I. Brătianu, Silviu Dragomir, Corneliu Coposu, Cicerone Ioniţoiu or received in exile by Mircea Carp.