Memorial Museum to the Victims of Communism & to the Resistance


A prison for political prisoners right up to 1974 has reopened as the Memorial Museum to the Victims of Communism and to the Resistance. Photographs and objects with short descriptions are displayed in more than 50 of the torture chambers and cells on two levels. Most everything is in Romanian, but a comprehensive booklet allows you to follow along in English and other languages.

In May 1947, the communist regime slaughtered, imprisoned and tortured thousands of Romanians who could (or might) oppose the new leadership. While many leading prewar figures were sent to hard-labour camps, the regime’s most feared intellectual opponents were held in Sighet’s maximum-security prison. Between 1948 and 1955 more than 180 members of Romania’s academic and government elite as well as priests and bishops were imprisoned here, and some 53 died.

The heart-rending bronze statues in the courtyard, shielding themselves and covering their mouths in horror, recall those who died. Many of these victims are buried in the Paupers' Cemetery some 2.5km west of the centre.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Maramureş Ethnographic Museum

0.1 MILES

One of three branches of the Maramureş Museum – the others are the Elie Wiesel Memorial House and the Village Museum – this ethnographic museum displays…

3. Jewish Community Centre

0.14 MILES

Next door to the Sephardic synagogue is this Jewish Community Centre, where you can also arrange to visit the town’s Jewish Cemetery.

4. Sephardic Synagogue

0.15 MILES

Sighet’s only remaining synagogue is north of Piaţa Libertăţii. It was built in the Moorish-Renaissance style in 1904. You can look around for free, but…

5. Monument to Holocaust Victims

0.16 MILES

This monument to the 38,000 Jews from Maramureş and surrounding areas slaughtered in WWII Nazi extermination camps was erected in 1947.

6. Elie Wiesel Memorial House

0.24 MILES

The late Jewish writer and 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) was born in and later deported from this house on the corner of Str…