Preambul la o cercetare arheologică a fostei colonii de muncă forţată din perioada comunistă de la Poarta Albă, România

Abstract

The present text is a preamble of proposed archaeological excavations in the former forced labor camp from the communist period at Poarta Albă, Dobrudja, Eastern Romania. In the 1950s thousands of persons were arrested for political and/ or religious reasons and sent to Poarta Albă to work for the construction of the Danube– Black Sea Canal ; many of them died due to the extermination conditions in the camp. To honor them, an Orthodox monastery is going to be built in the area of the former camp. We argue that the main aim of a future archaeological approach should be to uncover the memories hold by the site and surrounding landscape, i. e. “ the material memory” (Olivier 2008), and to contribute to the creation of a memorial museum, part of the monastery. Following the preliminary fieldwork carried out in 2012, a series of structures were mapped and photographed, the majority of which belong most probably to the former camp.

Keywords

• archaeology
• communist period
• forced labor camp
• danube – black sea canal
• romania