For Banat communities, this weekend marks 75 years since one of the region's deepest wounds: the Pentecost night of 1951, when more than 40,000 people from 300 villages in Timis, Caras and Mehedinti, considered by the new authorities of the time to belong to the 'wealthy peasant' class, were uprooted and deported to what survivors later called 'Romania's Siberia' - the Baragan steppe.

To ensure that the trauma of those deported does not fade into oblivion, the Jimbolia City Cultural Centre is organizing on Friday the commemorative event 'Deportation to the Baragan', beginning at 22:00, a symbolic hour marking the fragile threshold between the safety of home and the beginning of exile.

'That was the Black Pentecost of the Romanians. Banat families were taken from their homes in the middle of the night, with only the clothes they wore, deported and left under the open sky in the Baragan wilderness. The commemorative event proposes an emotional artistic journey built from photographs taken in exile, harrowing testimonies, musical reconciliations and a true path of solidarity. In that context, 1,006 residents of Jimbolia were sent into forced domicile. Today we revisit a painful chapter of regional history, grounded in the direct accounts of those who lived through the deportation to the Baragan Plain. If the January 1945 deportation to the USSR targeted strictly the German minority, the Baragan deportation encompassed a wide ethnic spectrum, aimed especially at the 'wealthier population',' museum curator and director of the Jimbolia Cultural Centre Sergiu Dema told AGERPRES.

The event opens at NomadAKtiv, a venue with symbolic resonance - for a century it housed a school and kindergarten. Here, the exhibition and artistic installation 'The Face of the Baragan' will present documentary photographs capturing the stark reality of exile: from mud-and-reed huts built in the open fields to the struggle to preserve human dignity through celebrations, weddings and everyday rituals.

The program continues with the launch of 'The Unforgotten Day of June 18, 1951', by Romina Soica and Sergiu Soica, a volume examining the deportation from Sannicolau Mare. Its inclusion underscores that Jimbolia's tragedy was not isolated; the experiences of the two towns mirror the collective fate of the entire Banat, offering a universal perspective on how the 'madness of deportation' shattered thousands of lives under identical political pretexts.

From NomadAKtiv, participants will walk to the Railway Museum, retracing a symbolic 'path of solidarity' - the same route taken by roughly 1,000 Jimbolia residents who, seven decades ago, headed toward the station and into an uncertain future.

The 2026 edition of the Baragan Deportation commemoration is organized through a partnership between the 'Sever Bocu' Press Museum, NomadAKtiv Association, 'Colt de Banat' Association, Jimbolia Technological High School, and Jimbolia Secondary School, with support from the Jimbolia City Hall and Local Council. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Otilia Halunga; EN - writing by: Simona Klodnischi)