The Heroes' Memorial in Moisei
A place for quiet reflection, a 12-minute walk from the guesthouse. The memorial remembers the people killed in Moisei in the autumn of 1944.
- Distance
- 850 m
- Time
- 12 min
- How
- on foot
Photo: Nenea hartia, CC BY-SA 4.0
The memorial is the closest place to visit from the guesthouse: 850 metres, about a 12-minute walk. It is not a sight in the usual sense. It is a memorial, and it deserves a quiet visit.
What happened here
The plaque on the memorial remembers the 29 Romanians killed on 14 October 1944. According to Wikipedia, they were Transylvanian peasants brought from the Vișeu de Sus labour camp and shot by retreating Hungarian troops in two wooden houses at the edge of the village. That same night, the village was set on fire.
The memorial
The memorial is a circle of tall stone pillars standing in a meadow. According to Wikipedia, the 12 figures (two human faces and ten traditional Maramureș masks) are the work of the sculptor Gheza Vida, and the two houses where the killings took place became memorial houses in 1983.
Visiting with a school group
- Talk to the pupils beforehand about what they will see, so the visit is more than a stop between two sights.
- Allow half an hour. The walk there and back, plus time at the memorial, fits easily between breakfast and the coach departure.
- Opening hours of the memorial houses, and whether groups can go inside, can be checked in advance with Moisei town hall.
Sources for the history: the memorial plaque and the Romanian Wikipedia article “Masacrul de la Moisei”.
