Piteşti prison

Paula sent me a note about a place I'd never heard of before - Piteşti prison. This from Wikipedia ....

The Piteşti prison (Romanian: Închisoarea Piteşti) was a penal facility in Piteşti, Romania, best remembered for the brainwashing experiment carried out by Communist authorities in 1949-1952 (also known as Experimentul Piteşti - the "Piteşti Experiment" or Fenomenul Piteşti - the "Piteşti Phenomenon"). The latter was designed as an attempt at violently "reeducating" the mostly young political prisoners, male members of banned groupings such as the National Peasants' and National Liberal parties, as well as those who claimed inspiration from the fascist Iron Guard or Zionist members of the Romanian Jewish community .....

I have to admit I don't know much about communism in Europe back in the 50s. If anything, I was pretty desensitized to the subject as a kid by the anti-communist ferver of my great aunt Alberta, a member of the John Birch Society. Reading about Piteşti prison was really sobering, though.

You can read a little more about it at the Wikipedia page and also at another site - The Memorial of the Victims of Communism