REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

132
Remembrance in Time
The interrogation is the central piece in the criminal inquiry of the Securitate. The
confessions obtained during the interrogation provide the essential data that are
manipulated during the course of the trial. The material evidence and witness confessions
were many times of secondary importance. The structure of the Securitate contained a
special directorate called “Criminal investigations,” whose prerogative was the
investigation of political crimes and their prosecution in court. 4
The inquest strategy was closely connected to the centralized organization of the
Securitate. An order of the General Directorate for the Security of the People (GDSP) 5
from Bucharest to the Cluj Regional Directorate of the Security of the People demanded
explanations for the arrests made without permission from the GDSP. 6 This document is
one of the many proving that key-moments in an investigation, such as its initiation or the
arrest of suspects, depended on approval from the centre. Moreover, due the nature of its
rapports with the lower structures, the GDSP exercised tight control over the evolution of
the investigation in general and the interrogation in particular. An order of the GDSP
dated August 17, 1951, demanded from the Cluj Regional Securitate the arrest of a
suspect, his interrogation according to a questionnaire attached to the order, and the
dispatch of a copy of the obtained statement to Bucharest. 7 A month before, they had
received a similar order demanding what kind of facts the investigation must establish
upon completion. In this case, the main fact that the investigators had to establish was
“the counterrevolutionary religious activities [of the suspects].” 8 The information on local
events was successively transmitted from the county to the regional and then central
level, by means of regular reports. Based on these reports, the GDSP decided on the
initiation of an investigation concerning certain suspects. According to the received
information, the Bucharest center decided on the arrest of the suspects or the interruption
of the investigation. The importance of the GDSP in the development of criminal
investigations was partly determined by the fact that it centralized the data collected from
all over the country. That is why the local sections depended on the information provided
by the Bucharest center. The GDSP benefited from this position and coordinated
interrogations by means of its orders and guidance. In certain cases, the guidance of an
investigation touched on details, by the dispatch of elaborated questionnaires for the
suspects as well as information on the persons of interest and instructions on how
investigators had to carry out their tasks. 9
The used questionnaires clearly reveal the stages of the interrogation. They were lists of
pre-established questions that later shaped the confessions of suspects. Without these
questionnaires, which meant to guide suspects during the process of the establishment of
their political guilt, the self-accusing statements given under duress risked being
contradictory. Even so, the mixture of truth and fiction revealed contradictions that were
4 See Marius Oprea, Banalitatea răului: o istorie a SecurităŃii în documente, Iaşi, 2002, p. 48.
5 GDSS from March 30, 1951. Marius Oprea, op. cit., p. 49.
6 NCSAS Archives (National Council for the Study of the Archives of the Securitate; CNSAS in
Romanian), Criminal Fonds, file P 484, vol. 3, p. 66. Telegram no. 2343, from 18.10.1948: “you
will send us complete accounts on those in custody / furthermore, you will report the reasons
why you started to operation without asking for our permission first.”
7 NCSAS Archives, Criminal Fonds, file P 389, vol. 2, p. 423.
8 NCSAS Archives, Criminal Fonds, file P 389, vol. 2, p. 441.
9 The Cluj Regional Directorate for the Security of the People was the main supplier of case files
to the Cluj Military Tribunal. There were around one thousand trials per year.