The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile organizes the conference “Condemned, but not forgotten: the fate of several pro-British activists in Romania. 1945-1964”, held by Mr. Dennis Deletant, professor of Romanian Studies at Georgetown University, Washington D.C., which will take place on Thursday, July 18th, from 17.00, at Grand Hotel Continental in Bucharest (56 Victoriei Street).
After the instauration of the communist regime in 1945, Romania was forced to turn its back on the Occident and look Eastwards. Any person connected to the western world automatically became a suspect and a target for the political police. Being in touch with the “imperialistic world” was a very serious accusation and those who were linked or who worked for the western legations and institutions turned over night from public officers into victims of the new regime.
At the conference, Professor Dennis Deletant will examine the fate of some of the Romanian members of the British Legation, the British Press Office and the British Military Mission, arrested on the count of espionage in 1949 and 1950 and convicted to many years in prison by the communist authorities.
The conference will be held at Tonitza Hall from the Grand Continental Hotel (56 Victoriei Street, sector 1, Bucharest).
Dennis Deletant was born in Norfolk, England, in 1946 and is a professor of Romanian studies at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. He studied in Romania as part of a post university scholarship awarded by the British Council in 1969 and subsequently visited Romania frequently until 1988, when he was declared persona non-grata following his unfavorable comments about the Ceausescu regime, made in the British media. At the end of December 1989, he returned to Bucharest as a BBC consultant during the Romanian revolution. In 1990, he was invited to be part of the advisory committee of the British Government’s Know-How Fund and was actively involved in the Romanian related fields from its activity. For his efforts, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1995. His works include: Ceauşescu and the Securitate, 1996, Hitler’s Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu, 2006, Historians as Nation Builders, 1988 (in collaboration with H. Hanak), Studies in Romanian History, 1991,Communist Terror in Romania, 1998.
The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER) is a governmental body which studies, documents and supports public awareness of the history of communism in Romania, through research, education, publishing and museum projects. IICCMER analyzes the nature, purpose and effects of totalitarianism in Romania during 1945-1989, but also the memory of the Romanian exile.
The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER) coordinates several unique project in recent history, such as archaeological campaigns for discovering the remains of the victims executed without trial by the Securitate, Ramnicu Sarat Memorial Museum – a former prison for political prisoners, the International Summer University on the study of Romanian communism, the first textbook on the history of Romanian communism, photo collections – the largest free online database with photos from communism, the MA program in the study Romanian communism, the Romanian exile archives, media projects of documentary films etc.