Victor Zâmbrea

Victor Zâmbrea (b. 1924, Reni, Ismail county, Bessarabia, Romania, d. 2000) was a Bessarabian painter.

In 1936, he finished the Gymnasyum (Junior High School) in native Reni, and in 1940 the Evening Lyceum (High School) in Bucharest. In 1941, he enrolled in the School of Beautiful Arts, Bucharest. In 1963, he graduated from the University of Popular Art in Moscow, Russia. He was a member of the Union of Plastic Artists of Moldova.

In 1942, he voluntarily enrolled in the Romanian Royal Navy's School of Scuba diving in Constanţa.

In November 1944, he was arrested by the Soviet NKVD, and sent to NKVD filtration point in Chişinău. Freed in June 1945, he went to Ismail, where he enrolled in the anti-Soviet resistance group "Vocea Basarabiei" ("The Voice of Bessarabia"). In May 1948, he was arrested for Romanian propaganda activity, a crime in the Soviet-occupied Bessarabia. He succeeded to escape from his prison, and changed his name to "Dumbrovschi".

Victor Zâmbrea then established himself in Chişinău, and made contacts with the Anti-Soviet Resistance Group in the city. In the evening of July 6th, 1949, he was arrested within the course of Operation Yug of mass deportation of cca. 40,000 civilians of Moldova to Siberia and northern Kazakhstan. Soon afterwards, interogation and investigation of his identity started. He was accused in virtue of Article 58 (political crimes) of the Russian Federation (on the grounds that the investigation was being carried in Russia, not in Moldova) of "anti-Soviet propaganda, and [being a] traitor of the Soviet people". The March 1953 amnesty decree after the death of Stalin saved him from capital punishment by execution squad. A year later he obtained a transfer to the city of Tumen to work under guard as painter in the Railroad Club.

At his liberation in 1958, he settled in Chişinău, where he worked as a painter in the University Central Store. Until his retirement in 1984, he also worked as a painter for "the Fund of Plastic Arts" in Chişinău.

Since 1954, his works have participated in different expositions. In 1994, he opened in Chişinău a personal exposition "Bessarabian Romanians deported to Siberia". His works are found in private and public collections in Paris, Bucharest, Moscow, Kiev, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Buenos Aires, Montreal, Riga, Vilnius, Timişoara, Braşov, Odessa, Nikolaev, Tumen, Novokuznetsk, Esentuki, Sighetu Marmaţiei.

ources

*Sighet Memorial of the Victims of Communism