behind the iron curtain  

Sighet prison was build in 1897, was regular prison in 1918, in 1950 become political prison and more than 100 high officers, ex-minister, political leaders, jurnalists and this kinda people were bring here, along with about 50 priests.

Sighet was officialy a "hard work prison" yet here torture, huniliation and stuff was something normal. Purpose ? "Elimination" of "antisocial" elements. Lot of them very "dangerous" people .. aged over 60 years old .. alike men and women.

Officialy in 1955 Sighet ceased to be a political prison, yet .. by coincidence in the area is also an psyhiatric hospital .. you got the point ..

In 1977 communists closed this prison and first they re-branded as a brooms factory, later as salt depot ..

As far as I know, Sighet is one of the top 3 places nominate by Europe Council as "places to keep the memory" or similar, along with the Auschwitz museum and peace museum of Normandie.

Disapeared ? Hard to count ...

Well you inspired a bit more reading wmraul and in 2007 the numbers of victims under the communist regime was estimated as being between half a million and two million in Romania, but no details on how many of them actually went through the prison system of just disappeared.

I tend more to rely on things I have seen, lived ..

As about the "estimate at 500 k up to 2 millions" .. I think second figure is closer to reality yet I can't guarantee is "big" enough.

Is still to be done more researches as yet more and more proofs comes to light .. and one of the big misteries yet to be solved is how many peoples were arrested without to be done any pappers durring the first "moments", mean 1947 - 1960 ..

Many of those "estimations", in my country or elsewhere forget to count some "details". For example tens of tousends of romanians, german nationality were deported in USSR in 1945and after, as to "help to rebuild objecives were damaged by german army". Nobody knows how many of those people had return .. if any ..

Those are huge numbers not to get much of a mention outside your country.

What you've said about the suspected political ones and family members sounds completely reminiscent of China where the people were taken to prisons to be reducated for having the wrong background. It sounds as if there must have been a universal document made for the communist authorities to control the people, primarily by fear.

The latest definition of communism - "what happens when the people decide the government knows best."

Odds are that in Poland things to be more harsh .. and sure more anticommunists and innocents died killed by communists, while there were russian troops .. We were lucky they withdraw and later were not allowed to pass by ..

well according to what i heard it softened down quite considerably towards the end. the solidarity movement [note to parated - socialist movement against communism] was becoming fairly influential. this means that while a lot of older people think things improved since (and i think they have) there were a few that saw certain advantages when living an average lifestyle then. of course anybody with opinions etc could have been pretty much guaranteed a tough time. i'm actually going to send a couple of emails to real life friends to get a bit more on this.

East Germany also lived under a huge pressure while look over the fence and see them westerner german "bruders" doing ok and they, the easterners had to watch not to step in front of russian tanks ...

Yep they did. I know a few people who got out though. There's an old discussion around here somewhere... :-)