It is infamous for the treatment of its political inmates, especially during World War II under the rule of Ion Antonescu, and later under the Communist regime.

These deaths were mostly due to typhus, cold weather, lack of medical care, malnutrition, and solitary detention at the Zarca.

[7] A CIA report from January 1954 observes: "Aiud Prison is one of the largest and harshest in Rumania.

"[9] In 1951, two of the detainees, Mircea Vulcănescu and Nicolae Mărgineanu, planned a mass escape of the prisoners, so that, once they were free, they would contact the anti-communist resistance in the mountains.

[10] From 1945 to 1948, the director of Aiud Prison was Alexandru Guțan; during his tenure, the first re-education program in Communist Romania took place there.

[11] While Ștefan Koller was the prison's commandant, from 1953 to 1958, the conditions were extremely harsh, and over 100 detainees died.

[12] Most deaths at Aiud occurred from 1958 to 1964, when the notorious Securitate Colonel Gheorghe Crăciun [ro] was in charge.

[13] The prison is in service today as a "Maximum Security Penitentiary"; as of February 2022, there are 737 detainees at Aiud.

In his poem Blestemul Aiudului ("Aiud's Curse"), Radu Gyr evokes the harsh conditions prisoners endured there in the 1950s.