PRESS RELEASE the Search and Exhumation Of
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
PRESS RELEASE The search and exhumation of the anticommunist partisans killed by the Securitate in the Apuseni Mountains Bucharest, 27 August 2015. The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER) together with The National Historical Museum of Transylvania from Cluj-Napoca (MNIT) organize, starting Monday, 31 August 2015, an archaeological investigation within the village Bistra, Alba County. The investigation aims to search, find and exhume the human remains of five persons killed on the 4th of March 1949 in an armed confrontation with the Securitate troops and agents. The activities will be organized in collaboration with Bistra Town Hall, the National Museum of Unification from Alba Iulia, the History Museum and the Natural Sciences Museum from Aiud and the History Museum of Turda. The phenomenon of the armed anti-communist resistance has become very important on the territory of Transylvania. The highest density of groups that opposed the communist regime was in the Apuseni Mountains, on the territory of the former counties of Alba, Cluj and Turda. The most important was “National Defence Front – Hajduk Corps”, created and led by a former military officer, Major Nicolae Dabija, seconded by brothers Alexandru and Traian Macavei. Nicolae Dabija was born on the 18th of April 1907 in Galați, one of the two sons of Dumitru and Ioana. In 1926 he became a volunteer in the army. He graduated from Military High School in Iași and the Military Schools for Infantry Officers, Sibiu, in 1929, as a second Lieutenant. In the following years, he served as officer in various regiments in garrisons. In 1933 he married Florica Angheluță from Brăila. They had no children. In October 1941, as a captain of the 38th Infantry Regiment in Brăila he was sent with his unit on the East Front. For his acts of heroism and the spirit of sacrifice in the armed confrontations, his merits were recognized. He was awarded several Romanian and German military orders and decorations, including Mihai Viteazul Order, by Royal Decree. He was twice wounded in battle, being advanced as exceptional major and decorated three times in the army and once on the nation. Because of his wounds, he was not able to participate on The West Campaign. After the war, he remained in the army on a border unit, but in July 1946 he served again on active duty, before having been dismissed by communists. When he was awarded the Mihai Viteazul Order, he received five hectares of land in Aradul Nou, where he settled with his wife after 1946. Here he started to fight against the new communist regime. Within the political context in Romania, Major Dabija came into contact with several persons involved in the anti-communist resistance. He met Macavei brothers from Bucium Muntari, Alba County, with whom, in December 1948, founded the organization The National Defence Front. They chose a place to settle a permanent camp, in the mountains, on the north of Arieș river valley, on the territory of Bistra village, Alba County. The camp was settled at an altitude of 1.200 m. in the place called Groși, 16 km northeast of the center of the village and 7 km southwest of the Big Mountain (1.826 meters). In January and February 1949, two shelters for the members of the organization were here built, a wood cottage and a large hovel partly dug into the ground which was covered with round fir beams, over which portions of land and grass were placed, in order to hide the place. The vestiges of this shelter are still visible in our days. The organization was based on military principles, with a status which included military rules, a program of military instruction, as well as an oath that all the members of the camp had to take on the 4th of March 1949. They even drew up a proclamation that had to be multiplied and spread in several regions of the country. Major Dabija intended to unify under his command all the anti-communist fractions from the Apuseni Mountains, and also to coordinate his actions with the anti-communist fighters from other regions of the country. In the beginning of March 1949, there were 25 persons in the camp from Groşi, most of them from other regions. Meanwhile, the authorities had heard about the group of partisans near Bistra and took measures to annihilate it. The Securitate agents put pressure on local people and blackmailed them. They learned about the place from a member of the organization, Ihuț Avram from Bistra, who was arrested and tortured, later being used as a guide to the camp. On the morning of 4 March 1949, the camp was attacked by the Securitate forces, two platoons from Battalion 7 of the Securitate Floreşti - Cluj, including 80 soldiers, officers, non-commissioned officers and several agents from the County Department of People Security Turda (second lieutenant Florea Sabău, senior warrant officer Vociu Octavian, senior warrant officer Pop T. Ioan, senior warrant officer Cosman Gheorghe, warrant officer Pintilie Alexandru). Operations on the field were led by second lieutenant Florea Sabău and the entire action was coordinated and supervised by colonel Mihai Patriciu, chief of Cluj Regional Security located in Câmpeni, and seconded by captain Kovács Mihai, chief of the SJSP Turda. The partisan camp was surrounded and attacked. The confrontation took place between 6:30 and 8:30. At that point, there were 22 people in the camp, three of them being women. Three partisans (Ihuț Traian, Selagea Nicolae, Clamba Iosif) had gone to bring food. Two men, Oniga Emil and Bocan Iancu, former soldiers, were infiltrated by the Securitate in the partisan camp, but this had already been revealed and known by Dabija and other members of the organization, and they were to be judged as traitors. Infantry weapons, grenades and loads of TNT were used in the fight. Both sides suffered of killed and wounded and the wooden cottage caught fire. Three of the attackers were killed (senior sergeant 2 Mateș I. Gheorghe, specialist Mărgineanu Gh. Marin, soldier Oană Gh. Traian) and six wounded. Five partisans were shot to death, four men ( Cigmăian Ioan, Decean Petru, Maier Iosif, Mitrofan Lucian) and a woman, Maier Elena, Maier Iosif’s wife. Six people managed to escape but they were captured or killed shortly after the attack (Dabija Nicolae, Scridon Ioan, Pascu Cornel, Câmpean Traian, Alexandru and Traian Macavei). Nine other partisans, except the two traitors, were arrested (Mihălțan Traian, Onea Titus, Rațiu Augustin, Oprița Gheorghe, Moldovan Simion, Vandor Victor, Breazu Iuliu, Pop Alexandra, Buțuțui Viorica). The victims of the Securitate were evacuated from the field in the same day as well as the personal objects, belongings, documents and the weapons taken from the camp and from the dead partisans and prisoners. Next day, on the 5th of March, some agents from the Bureau of the Securitate from Câmpeni, together with 20 soldiers, the mayor, the hospital attendant, the chief of Militia from Bistra and some young men from the village went in the camp to search and bury the partisans’ corpses. The bodies were put first on the back of the shelter partly dug into the ground. Then, they tried to destroy the roof in order to cover them, but they didn’t succeed. So, all the bodies were taken outside and put one above the other in the storehouse of the camp, which was set in a small underground cavity, dug and covered with wooden beams and land. Then its superior structure was turned down over the bodies. In the beginning of spring, some peasants who were passing by, found the decomposing bodies and threw some ground over, to protect them from animals. This place is the crypt grave where the remains of these people are still buried. The location of the mass grave was indicated in the field in August 2009 by Ioan Gligor from Bistra, deceased in 2012, who had participated in the burial of victims. The location was also confirmed by Alexandru Macarie from Bistra, who had taken part in the spring of 1949 at the covering of the corpses with ground. Soon after the attack on the camp and the destruction of the nucleus of The National Defense Front – The Haiduc Corps, other members and supporters of the group from the villages on the mountain or on the Mureș Valley and the places nearby were also arrested. Major Dabija was captured on the 22nd of March 1949, in Gârde, a small village near Bistra, after having been betrayed by some peasants . He was investigated in several places, being tried together with other defendants by the Military Tribunal from Sibiu. He was sentenced to death, with six other people, all of them being executed on the 28th of October 1949, in Sibiu. Dozens of people were sentenced to lots of years in prison, but some of them, contrary to the court order, were taken out from prisons and shot or hung by the Securitate. Other members of the group that first escaped from being arrested, were constantly followed, and finally captured, convicted and even killed in different circumstances. The biographies of the people killed and buried at Groși Cigmăian Ioan. Born on the 9th of September 1908 in Gelmar village, Geoagiu town, Hunedoara County. His parents were Cigmăian Nicolae and Mocsa Elena, peasants from Gelmar, that had three children, two girls, Fica and Maria, and a son, Ioan. This 3 one married, on the 3rd of February 1928, Rus Marc Sabina from Gelmar, whom he divorced on the 17th of October 1947. They had together a son, Aurel, deceased.