Newsletter No. 26/2015

A former Communist-era prison commander has been sentenced to 20 years in jail after being convicted of crimes against humanity in the first such trial in Romania.

Alexandru Visinescu, 89, ran the notorious Ramnicu Sarat prison from 1956 to 1963, where inmates were allegedly tortured and starved. At least 12 people are said to have died as a result of the abuse. Mr Visinescu denied the charges, saying he was just following orders. Prosecutors had sought a 25-year sentence, arguing that Mr Visinescu oversaw an "extermination regime" at the Ramnicu Sarat prison camp in the east of the country. Nicknamed "the prison of silence" because detainees were held in solitary confinement, the facility housed intellectuals, dissidents, priests and others deemed enemies of the Communist Party.

As many as two million people were killed or persecuted by the former communist authorities in Romania, an official report says.

The report was presented to parliament by Romanian President Traian Basescu. It was the first such official inquiry into Romania's communist-era crimes. Mr Basescu said the 1945-1989 communist regime was "illegitimate and criminal". He proposed a national memorial day and museum for the victims of communism, along with a new history textbook.

Präsident Václav Havel: "Ich finde es nicht gut, wenn gesagt wird, dass die Deutschen für Hitler, die Sudetendeutschen für München und die Tschechen für den Kommunismus verantwortlich sind. Dies sind meiner Meinung nach gefährliche Generalisierungen, sagte Havel in Bezug auf das Münchner Abkommen vom September 1938, auf Grund dessen die Tschechoslowakei die Sudetengebiete an Deutschland abtreten musste. Zu dem Einwand, dass die überwiegende Mehrheit der Sudetendeutschen vor dem Krieg die Sudetendeutsche Partei von Konrad Henlein gewählt hatten, erklärte Havel, dass auch "99 Prozent der Tschechen (vor 1989) für die Kandidaten der Nationalen Front (Block-Parteien und Organisationen in der kommunistischen Ära, Anm.) stimmten. "Und trotzdem haben sie für dieses Regime nicht geschwärmt"....