“Place of extermination of children” in Romania. Almost 500 minors died in a home in Dâmbovița, most during the communist period, but also immediately after the Revolution. Now, the Public Prosecutor's Office has been notified to investigate

The Institute for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER) filed a criminal complaint on Thursday, in a file that investigates the death of 497 minors, between 1970 and 1997, to which is added a number of 38 beneficiaries who have exceeded the age of 18. It is a total of 535 deaths that took place at the Home-hospital for irretrievably deficient Moreni-Ţucani, Dâmbovița county, according to a press release of the institution. Most died of starvation and bronchopneumonia.

• The criminal complaint concerns the commission of the crime of inhumane treatment, by organizing a regime characterized by inhuman and degrading treatments applied to minors.
• The criminal complaint was filed at the Prosecutor's Office attached to the Ploiesti Court of Appeal.

According to the IICCMER investigation, the Center initially functioned as a surgical and TB preventive hospital for children, later being transformed into a center for neuropsychiatric children and finally into a center for the “irretrievably handicapped”.

Death by starvation and lack of medical care

IICCMER claims that during the period 1970-1997, the institution became a place of extermination of minors, with mortality rates that frequently exceeded 70% of admissions, especially in the years 1985-1989. The data indicate that more than half of the children hospitalized from the cradles in Arad and Satu Mare died in the center in Moreni, under aggravating conditions such as malnutrition, bronchopneumonia and degrading living conditions. In the period 1985-1989, of the 134 children transferred from the cradles in Arad, 75% lost their lives, most of them in the first months of hospitalization, due to severe malnutrition and lack of medical assistance.

The institute states that “the investigation identified the persons responsible for these crimes, involved in the organization and management of the inhuman regime applied in the center.”

Why were children dying?

According to the investigation, over 65% of those transferred from cradles in the period 1985-1989 died due to malnutrition, to which is added a percentage of 26% deaths due to bronchopneumonia.

“A relevant statistic regarding those who died due to malnutrition is related to the duration of survival in the Moreni Home-hospital. Thus, 57.52% of them died in the first three months, and if we add those who died within a maximum of one year after admission, we arrive at a proportion of over 70%. Starting from the premise that the main cause of malnutrition is the lack of proper nutrition, and the main cause of of the deaths recorded in Moreni was precisely malnutrition, we can advance the hypothesis of the existence of a regime of extermination of minors in this center”, the document states.

“Among the 137 who died from bronchopneumonia and lung diseases, no less than 53 were three years old, 15 were 4 years old and 13 were 5 years old. So 60.9% of those who died from bronchopneumonia were part of the 3-5 years old age group, 20.3% of the 6-10 years old group, 16.5% of the 11-17 and 2.2% were over 18”.

The horror statistics

• among the 474 miners hospitalized in the period 1985-1989, no less than 295 children lost their lives, a mortality rate of over 60%. The total number of deaths from 1985-1989 was 336 (41 of the deceased minors were hospitalized before 1985).
• among the 134 children transferred from the Cradle in Arad between 1985 and 1989, no less than 100 (approx. 75%) die in the home-hospital as follows: 19 die in the first month after admission, 28 in the second, 24 in the third, 11 in the fourth.
• of the 54 children transferred from the Cradle in Satu Mare in the batch of June 17, 1988, no less than 41 (approx. 76%) die in the Home-hospital as follows: 22 die in the first month after admission (more than half), 12 in the second, 4 in the third, 2 in the fourth. It is relevant that among the 41 deceased children who came from Satu Mare, 35 died due to malnutrition.
• Almost 60% of those hospitalized between 1970 and 1997 lost their lives in inhumane conditions, and those who managed to survive were left with physical and mental sequelae that followed them throughout their lives.

According to IICCMER, the situation began to change gradually after 1990, with the arrival of humanitarian missions from abroad. “Regarding the 110 minors hospitalized during 1990, only 15 of them died (about 13%), most of them in the first months of the year, before the arrival of foreign humanitarian missions.”

Mother Teresa saved 63 children from here

The institute also remembers Mother Teresa's visit to this home. “In May 1990, Mother Teresa, as the founder of the Missionaries of Charity order, visited Romania, stopping at the Moreni-Ţicani Home-hospital for severely handicapped minors where, with the consent of the Ministries of Health and Labor, she took 63 children and transferred them to a special shelter set up in Chitila, near Bucharest. Some of these children who were saved from death were adopted by families from the West. The transfer of these minors from a medical unit to a social shelter practically saved the lives of 63 minors who were going to die, only needing to provide better living conditions, nutrition, hygiene, medication and attention,” the IICCMER statement states.