[2] During the interwar period, the prison housed both common criminals and suspected activists of the banned Romanian Communist Party.

Seventeen communists, both men and women, were sent to both prisons by court order in September 1942, including Leontin Sălăjan.

There were also cases of summary executions, for example in August 1949, when seven members of the anti-communist resistance movement, told they were being taken from Timișoara to Aiud Prison, were shot in a nearby forest on orders from Alexandru Nicolschi.

Its inmates, both partisans and illegal border-crossers, were subjected to harsh interrogation by the Securitate secret police; vicious beatings resulted in weeks of incapacitation.

Prisoners included Sever Bocu, Titus Popovici, Coriolan Băran, A. L. Zissu, and Ion Ioanid.