Prisoner's letters
Item set
Title
Prisoner's letters
Description
The letters and postcards that were written to and from detention or prison were often intercepted by the secret police or prison authorities. Such letters represent valuable sources as they enable us to both reconstruct the conditions in the prisons and labour camps as lived by members of various religious groups and also to gain an insight into the intimate details of the personal lives of individuals. Letters sent by detainees and prisoners offer us a very different picture of their authors than the one portrayed of them in police reports, court documents or in the press or police reports. They sometimes reveal the deepest emotions, struggles and thoughts of prisoners. Secret police archival documents contain letters written by both men and women. The letters written by women are particularly valuable as their reflections on how they each understood their calling and reasons for their detention are rarely captured elsewhere.
Creator
Iuliana Cindrea
Publisher
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme No . 677355
Bibliographic Citation
Iuliana Cindrea, "Prisoner's letters"
Date Created
2019
Items
-
Postcard sent to nun Olimpiada Petreanu whilst in monastic incarceration
These images show the front and reverse of a postcard that was sent to nun Olimpiada Petreanu by her brother whilst she was incarcerated at Vărzărești Monastery. The postcard is of particular interest as it mentions the difficulties that the families of imprisoned Old Calendarist nuns encountered in their efforts to contact them. The first image shows the front of the postcard and contains references to one of the most important issues that the nuns and their families experienced. One of the constant complaints of the nuns, as well as of their families, was that the postcards, letters and pac -
Amnesty International postcards sent to imprisoned Greek Catholic bishop in Romania
The four images show Amnesty International postcards sent to Dej prison to the Greek Catholic Bishop Ioan Dragomir in 1964. They are selected from a total of 15 winter holiday postcards sent from various places in United Kingdom and Australia to Dej prison. Most of them have standardized typed messages on the Amnesty International cards. The first picture shows the inside of a card and back of an envelope. The card is a standard pre-written Amnesty International card to which the sender added: “I hope you will soon be free. God be with you.” The sender was the secretary of the University Col -
Postcard sent from detention by Romanian Old Calendarist nun
These images show a postcard sent by an Old Calendarist nun to her family whilst in detention. It is a particularly sensitive letter as it conveys the struggles of the nun who appears to have been rejected by her parents for reasons that are not clear from the information we have. The first image shows the face of the postcard and it contains references to the sufferings that the nun had endured for the last two years. From the message that she wrote to her parents, she seems to accuse them of having forgotten about her during these hardships and she reminds them that she is still their daugh -
Confiscated postcard written by Romanian Old Calendarist nun
These images show a postcard sent by an Old Calendarist nun to her family in which she describes how she was arrested and sent to an Orthodox Monastery. The postcard was confiscated and attached to a file that contains many such postcards. They all date from approximately same period of time between 1936 and 1937. The first image represents the face of the postcard and includes important details about the fate of the nun. She describes to her family how she was arrested, where she was taken and what the conditions at the Monastery were like. Arrested by the Gendarmes on her way to the post of