A. Salca; Romanian Foe of Communism Imprisoned 15 Years

Alexandru Salca, 78, a vocal opponent of communism who served 15 years in Romanian prisons for opposing the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, died of a heart attack on April 27 in Brasov, Romania.

The eldest of nine children born to a peasant family, Salca was active in the youth wing of a trade union group opposed to communism. He was imprisoned from 1948-55 after the Soviets imposed a pro-Moscow government in Romania. Two years later he was sentenced to 40 years in prison for encouraging Romanians to support the anti-Communist uprising in Hungary. He was released, however, in a general amnesty in 1964.

After the fall of communism in 1989, Salca wrote four books on the horrors of Communist prisons and forced labor camps on the Black Sea Canal, a 50-mile-long channel linking the Danube River to the sea. Hundreds of thousands of Romanians were imprisoned or sent to forced labor camps between 1945 and 1964 while the Communist regime tried to crush dissent.

Salca’s written testimony was important to the recent indictment of a former prison commander, Col. Gheorghe Craciun, who was accused of the deaths of 216 prisoners in the Aiud prison from 1958-64. However, Craciun died in May before his trial was completed.