The women were common criminals as well as political prisoners placed in a special section: spies, Iron Guard affiliates and Romanian Communist Party activists.

After 1949, political prisoners were allowed into the workshops, producing traditional crafts, bridal dresses and Persian rugs, then using the money to buy food from a nearby farm.

[8][9] Also a prisoner in the early 1950 was Nadia Russo, an aviator who flew air ambulance missions in World War II with the White Squadron.

[6] The prisoners were as young as school age, and one was brought there shortly after being born, the posthumous daughter of an anti-communist resistance movement fighter, interned along with her mother.

Physical beatings were rare, but other punishments frequent: food deprivation, being forced to stand from 5 in the morning until 10 at night, vaginal inspections, and isolation in freezing rooms.

The warden from 1944 to 1953, a veteran communist, stands out as a positive character in memoirs: she hated informants, procured medicines for the prisoners, and tolerated the celebration of Christmas.

For instance, after one inmate was left alone to give birth at night, Tudor came in, saw her all covered in blood, and said: "There, whelping like a reactionary bitch".