Argument

The present paper stems from the possibility to carry out a period of research at the Communism and Resistance Victims Memorial from Sighetu Marmatiei during the summer of 2004. The research theme was suggested by Ruxandra Cesereanu, expert in the issue of the Romanian Gulag, whose advice has been of great use during the work for this project. Therefore, I would like to thank her for her help back then.

My research was structured in the form of a behavioral essay, which attempted to cover, gradually, in chapters, the whole process of feminine oppression and detention during the communist period. The succession of the chapters is not fortuitous, but resorts to a coherence easy to follow. In the first chapter I tried to define all the conflict situations between the communist regime and the women who opposed it (who and why was oppressed), continuing to dwell upon the abuses upon these women, the consequences of the oppression, as well as the means by which these women have resisted the challenge of the concentration Inferno. Eventually, I have carried out a concise comparison between the feminine and the masculine detention in the Romanian Gulag.

The present work is designed, not only for the experts, but also for the common people. It is, unassumingly, a documented trial of bringing foreword a historical period that deserves to be known in detail. I have also written this book thinking that history repeats itself in camouflaged forms and that mystification is sometimes more difficult to detect, yet immanent to life. This has meant to me – and I hope for the reader, too – a good occasion for philosophical reflection.