Until 1944, the prison held common criminals, Iron Guardists and, on the second floor, sympathizers of the banned Romanian Communist Party.
The secret police, known as the Securitate from 1948, had its arrest rooms in the same building, meaning it had ready access to the detainees, whom it would often subject to violent interrogations.
One woman had her tympanum burst during a beating, followed by two months of hemorrhage; while her sister went into a spontaneous abortion and severe internal bleeding.
The idea appears to have originated in mid-1948 with the civil-servant father of Alexandru Bogdanovici, one of numerous Iron Guardists from Western Moldavia sent to Suceava that year.
The suggestion, drawing on a 1945 amnesty of Iron Guard members who pledged to cease anti-regime activities, was that initiating a re-education process might lead to a pardon.