ABSTRACT
The chapter examines how recollections of former victims of communism and their families were to become a substitute for court-administered justice and have ultimately resulted in several belated criminal trials. Within the literature of detention, the typical portrayal of prison and labor camp officials presents an image of them as lacking in human qualities. As crimes against humanity had fallen under the statute of limitations of the 1964 socialist criminal code, former officials escaped prosecution. However, in 2006, an official body – the Institute for the Investigation of Crimes of Communism – charged with investigating human rights violations was established. But it was not until 2014 when the UN’s crimes against humanity clause was incorporated in the new criminal code that two successful legal proceedings against Stalinist era officials were finalized. The trial of Alexandru Vişinescu – a former commandant of Râmanicu-Sărat prison from 1956 to 1963 – sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for crimes against humanity is explored in detail. Given that the legal case was built on the transmitted memories of victims and other secondary cases, the trial could best be described as an act of retrospective criminal justice. During the proceedings, Vişinescu came to be seen as embodying the criminal nature of communism.
