People who lived in orphanages in Romania between 1947 and 1997 could receive a monthly allowance and some amenities, according to a draft law submitted to the legislature by USR MPs Irineu Dareu and Andrii Miftode. USR begins its project with images of conditions in Romanian orphanages published in the early 1990s, stressing that “no amount of action can erase or at least compensate for the pain experienced by children raised in this way.”

Images broadcast around the world since 1990 have shown inhumane conditions in so-called “cradles”: children tied to beds and confined to one room, disabled children, AIDS patients, poor hygienic conditions, excessive the number of medicines and the lack of proper care, says the press release of the UDR.

“Communist orphanages are still a deep wound that Romania must heal. No amount of action can erase or even compensate for the pain experienced by children raised in this way, but we believe that it is the duty of the state to offer recognition and support to those who had no other choice or chance in life in a cruel and totalitarian system. Nothing can compensate for the horror experienced then, the lost childhood. And the fault of the state cannot be erased. These compensations are necessary. We can no longer postpone reconciliation with the past,” said USR Senator Irineu Dareu.

What compensations mean for children of children’s homes of the communist period

The USR initiative proposes that Romanian citizens who lived in orphanages on the territory of Romania between 1947 and 1997 should benefit from:

• – Monthly compensation in a fixed amount in the amount of 10% of the average accrued salary, which is used to form the ISR budget of the state social insurance. That is, about 750 lei.
• – Exemption from payment of certain local taxes and fees, such as war veterans or revolutionaries.
• – Free participation in psychotherapy sessions and/or clinical psychological counseling within 300 lei per month.

“On December 13, on University Square, several Bucharest students symbolically raised hundreds of white balls into the sky in honor of 436 children killed during communism in a house not far from the capital, a house in Plateresti. The Institute for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism has transferred the case to the Prosecutor’s Office, and we hope that it will not be buried in boxes like so many others. For most of us, the memory of the brutal deprivations of communism has faded. However, we are not allowed to forget the horrors of those times, those whom the state condemned to a life of poverty and isolation through no fault of their own,” said Ukrainian SSR MP Andriy Miftode, the quoted source said.

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