Victor Isac

* 1917

  • "[I was arrested] in 1945. I was a part of the first trial organized by Bolshevik Security.... Communist of Nicolschi’s style. They mixed us with all the political parties only to demonstrate that there was a counterrevolutionary activity against the Regime established by Groza on March 6, 1945. I was sentenced to 5 years of correctional [prison]....The head of the group was Remus Tetu, from the Liberal Party.... There, indeed, they found some kind of germ, a reason to claim that it was an organization, and he was sentenced because he was representing the Liberal Party.... I got five years, representing – it wasn’t about guilt – the National Peasant Party.... Adriana Georgescu, Chief of Staff and collaborator of [Prime Minister] Radescu... got 4 years. After that, the others received sentences of 3 years, 2 years, and a year. Seems that we were a total of 18.…"

  • "The arrest was here, in this room. It was very hard.... It was...Thursday before Easter. I was waiting.... The church bells were ringing.... My older child, he was about 7 or 8 years, and the younger one... a year and a half.... I was with the younger child in my arms.... Invasion...of the Securitate.... I told them... 'You don’t have reasons to arrest me.' 'We have arrest warrant.' You can imagine it was a dramatic scene. I mean... the child was snatched from my arms, crying, my wife was crying too....The older child came also here in the room: 'Come on, Dad ... what should we do? Are we going to vespers? The bells are ringing....Aren’t we going...?' This was the atmosphere in which I have been arrested. It was extremely painful. I mean that, many of these scenes I cannot... is hard for me to handle."

  • "In that organization’s 'T' trial, together with Fluieras, was arrested also a socialist, Măglaşu, but he disagreed with Bolshevism... the new one, which was installed in our country. And this Măglaşu... I do not know... [Nicolae] Ceausescu [wanted] to invite all those who took part to the party’s establishment in 1923 [1921 - translator note], May 8th.... And, they found also this Măglaşu.... He got the invitation to the event.... And he said: 'How should I take part to this event with you, who sentenced me to prison?' [laughs] I think he received amnesty, because he was released. 'I was a political prisoner.' 'This cannot be! Do my forms!' And the forms were made, he was acquitted. Well, from this acquittal also we benefited, and I was acquitted of this trial."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Bucuresti, 16.07.2012

    (audio)
    duration: 02:46:42
    media recorded in project Prison Experiences in Communist Romania
  • 2

    Bucuresti, 16.07.2012

    (audio)
    duration: 02:46:42
    media recorded in project Prison Experiences in Communist Romania
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I was a part of the first criminal trial organized by the Bolshevik Securitate (Romanian Political Police)

Victor Isac 1964.jpg (historic)
Victor Isac
photo: arhiva; arhiva personala

Victor Isaac was born on December 29, 1917, in the village Zlasti, Hunedoara County, Romania. He studied Philosophy and Letters at the University of Bucharest, and started a PhD with the philosopher Mircea Florian, to whom he was an assistant. Victor was arrested on either the 22nd or the 23rd of July in 1945 because his affiliation to the National Peasant Party. At this time the Communists had just taken over the government, so Victor’s trial was among the first staged by the Party. He was sentenced to five years in prison for conspiracy against the social order, and served it in the prisons of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Uranus, Jilava, Vacaresti and Aiud. He was released in January of 1948. Victor was arrested again on April 10, 1958, this time sentenced to hard labor for life for the crime of armed insurrection. His sentence was reduced to 25 years of hard labor, however, during another staged trial against an alleged ant-communist organization called, “White Guard.” He again served his sentence in prisons Deva, Jilava, Galati, Botosani, Aiud. Victor was released either on July 31st or August 1st of 1964. In 1972, he was acquitted of the offense of armed insurrection, and in 1976 his sentence from 1945 was expunged. Victor Isaac has since both written and published before, and especially after 1989, several studies and books of history and the history of philosophy.