National Archive rooms to be freed for files on repressed persons

Thousands of files from the National Archive may be moved to the Ministry of Justice and the Civil Registers Division. The Archive’s director Petru Vicol has told Info-Prim Neo that the files will be moved in order to free space for the files on politically repressed persons that were transferred to the National Archive by the Security and Information Service (SIS) and the Ministry of the Interior. ”A part of the building where the Ministry of Justice is based was constructed for the archive of the former Communist Party. There are optimal conditions for keeping the documents,” said Petru Vicol. He also said that the files the researchers are not very interested in will be transferred to the Ministry’s head office. Room will be freed for the about 15,000 files on the victims of political repression. The 15,000 files are now not in great demand. About 20 applications for seeing the files have been submitted since they were transferred to the National Archive, said Petru Vicol. The first SIS files were moved to the National Archive last November. According to the SIS, over 31,000 politically repressed persons were convicted in 1920-1951, more than 5,000 of whom were sentenced to death. Another 3,000 people died in prisons and remand centers. More than 12,000 families were recognized as victims of political repression.