Ana Toma

Ana Toma
Born
Ana Grossmann

9 October 1912
Botoșani, Kingdom of Romania
DiedJanuary 1991
Romania
Employer(s)NKVD
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania
National Union of Workers' Cooperatives
Political partyRomanian Communist Party (PCR)
Spouse(s)Sorin Toma
Gheorghe Pintilie
PartnerConstantin Pîrvulescu
Children2
AwardsOrder of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic, 2nd class
Hero of Socialist Labor

Ana Toma (née Grossmann, 9 October 1912 – January 1991) was a Romanian communist and politician who served on the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) and was first deputy secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania. She was married to Securitate General Gheorghe Pintilie. She was sometimes referred to as Anuţa to distinguish her from Ana Pauker, herself also known as "comrade Ana."[1]

Early life

Toma was born as Ana Grossmann to Jewish bourgeois parents on 9 October 1912 in Botoșani, Kingdom of Romania.[2] Due to her Jewish ancestry she was interned during World War II, but survived the war.[2]

Romanian Communist Party

Toma was an underground communist activist before the outbreak of World War II,[3] and joined as a member of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) in 1932.[4] After the war, she was an agent of the NKVD (the interior ministry and secret police).[4][5] She also became a highly visible asset of the PCR's agitprop section, where she worked under the propagandist Leonte Răutu.[6]

During the trial of communist activist Remus Koffler in April 1954, who had been caught up in the downfall of politician Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu,[7] Toma served as a witness.[8]

When her close friend Ana Pauker became secretary-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania in November 1947, Toma was appointed as first deputy and as Pauker's personal administrative secretary.[9][10] Toma was directly involved in helping Pauker's father Herș Rabinsohn to embark on a Jewish migrant ship bound for Mandatory Palestine, which was kept secret from others in the Communist party leadership.[10] She accompanied Pauker on trips to Moscow,[11] and also travelled to Peiping (now known as Beijing) in 1958 to attend the opening ceremony of the Romanian Economic Exhibition in the People's Republic of China.[12]

Toma was deputy minister until 1965,[9] surviving the political purge of Pauker over her views on agricultural collectivisation[13] and her political "right deviation."[10]

In 1965, Toma was reassigned to manage the National Union of Workers' Cooperatives (UCECOM).[14] She also served on the Central Committee of the PCR.[15]

Personal life

Toma's first marriage was to communist and journalist Sorin Toma [ro], who was editor in chief of the party's official daily magazine Scânteia.[16] She settled with him in Bucharest,[17] but their marriage ended when he was exiled to the Soviet Union.[9][6] She kept her second husband's name after the end of the marriage.[6]

In 1942, Toma began a relationship with Constantin Pîrvulescu,[9] who was ranked third in the PCR leadership at the time[16] and who became the General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party.

Toma married for a second time to intelligence officer and Securitate General Gheorghe Pintilie.[15][18] It has been alleged by several historians, such as Dennis Deletant, that she either spied on her husband or existed as a supervising link between the Ministry of State Security (MGB) and his offices.[19][20] Câmpeanu recalls that they formed a "bizarrely non-homogeneous couple", beyond their shared dislike for Ștefan Foriș. Toma had a Jewish-and-bourgeois background, being congenial, adaptable, and intelligent; Pintilie, meanwhile, was "structurally dogmatic, primitive, obtuse, [...] as inflexible as he was dull."[21]

Toma also adopted two children: Radu and Ioana, the latter of whom became an architect in Israel.[6]

Death

Toma lived through the Romanian anti-communist revolution of 1989 and died in January 1991 in Romania, by which time she was almost completely blind.[14]

Awards

  • "The Fifth Anniversary of the Romanian People's Republic" medal (24 December 1952) "for the struggle and work carried out in order to create, consolidate and prosper the Romanian People's Republic."[22]
  • "40 years since the founding of the Communist Party of Romania" medal (6 May 1961) "for long-term activity in the labour movement and special merits in the work of building socialism."[23]
  • Order of Labor, 1st class (5 November 1962) "for long-term activity in the labour movement."[24]
  • Order of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic, 2nd class (18 August 1964) “for special merits in the work of building socialism, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the liberation of the homeland.”[25]
  • Hero of Socialist Labor[26]

References

  1. ^ Balas, Egon (1 January 2015). Will to Freedom: A Perilous Journey Through Fascism and Communism. Syracuse University Press. p. 187. ISBN 978-0-8156-0625-3.
  2. ^ a b British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Eastern Europe, 1952. LexisNexis. 2005. p. 272. ISBN 978-0-88692-724-0.
  3. ^ Pălășan, Corina; Vasile, Cristian (1 January 2011). History of Communism in Europe vol. 2 / 2011: Avatars of Intellectuals under Communism. Zeta Books. p. 262. ISBN 978-606-8266-14-5.
  4. ^ a b Deletant, Dennis (1 October 1993). "The securitate and the police state in Romania: 1948–64". Intelligence and National Security. 8 (4): 1–25. doi:10.1080/02684529308432223. ISSN 0268-4527.
  5. ^ Roszkowski, Wojciech; Kofman, Jan (8 July 2016). Biographical Dictionary of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century. Routledge. p. 785. ISBN 978-1-317-47594-1.
  6. ^ a b c d Tismăneanu, Vladimir (15 October 2003). Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism. University of California Press. pp. 97–99, 290. ISBN 978-0-520-23747-6.
  7. ^ Tănase, Stelian (2005). Clienții lu' tanti varvara: istorii clandestine (in Romanian). Humanitas. p. 378. ISBN 978-973-50-0878-9.
  8. ^ Rozenberg, Veronica (21 March 2022). Jewish Foreign Trade Officials on Trial: In Gheorghiu-Dej's Romania 1960-1964. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 99. ISBN 978-1-7936-5285-0.
  9. ^ a b c d Deletant, Dennis (1999). Communist Terror in Romania: Gheorghiu-Dej and the Police State, 1948-1965. Hurst. pp. 117–118. ISBN 978-1-85065-386-8.
  10. ^ a b c Levy, Robert (1995). "The "Right Deviation" of Ana Pauker". Communist and Post-Communist Studies. 28 (2): 182, 239–254. doi:10.1016/0967-067X(95)00013-K. ISSN 0967-067X. JSTOR 45301931.
  11. ^ "East European Perspectives: June 27, 2001". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 11 November 2008. Archived from the original on 30 July 2020. Retrieved 18 May 2025.
  12. ^ Current Background. American Consulate General. 1958. p. 35.
  13. ^ Levy, Robert (22 March 2001). Ana Pauker: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Communist. University of California Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-520-22395-0.
  14. ^ a b Tismăneanu, Vladimir (12 August 2014). Stalinism pentru eternitate: O istorie politică a comunismului românesc (in Romanian). Humanitas SA. p. 325. ISBN 978-973-50-4560-9.
  15. ^ a b Stan, Marius; Tismăneanu, Vladimir (2017). "The Death of a Leninist Dictator: "The Memory of Comrade Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej Forever Alive in the Heart of the Party, of the Working Class, of the People"". Journal of Cold War Studies. 19 (3): 202–214. doi:10.1162/JCWS_a_00759. ISSN 1520-3972. JSTOR 26925700. Archived from the original on 15 September 2024. Retrieved 18 May 2025.
  16. ^ a b Miroiu, Andrei (15 July 2016). Romanian Counterinsurgency and its Global Context, 1944-1962. Springer. p. 54. ISBN 978-3-319-32379-4.
  17. ^ Câmpeanu, Pavel (2003). Ceauşescu: The Countdown. East European Monographs. p. 241. ISBN 978-0-88033-524-9.
  18. ^ "Confesiunile lui Sorin Toma, redactor-şef la cel mai mare ziar al României, în cea mai întunecată epocă a presei". adevarul.ro (in Romanian). 2 March 2013. Retrieved 18 May 2025.
  19. ^ Deletant, Dennis (2005) "Romania", in Krzysztof Persak, Łukasz Kamiński (eds.), A Handbook of the Communist Security Apparatus in East Central Europe, 1944–1989, pp. 285–328. Warsaw: Institute of National Remembrance. p. 327. ISBN 83-89078-82-1
  20. ^ Catalan, Gabriel; Stănescu, Mircea (2004). "Scurtă istorie a Securității" (PDF). Sfera Politicii. XII (109): 39. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 18 May 2025.
  21. ^ Câmpeanu, Pavel (2002) Ceaușescu, anii numărătorii inverse. Iași: Polirom. p. 146. ISBN 973-683-840-4
  22. ^ Decretul Prezidiului Marii Adunări Naționale a Republicii Populare Române nr. 508 din 24 decembrie 1952 pentru conferirea Medaliei „A cincea aniversare a Republicii Populare Române”, publicat în Buletinul Oficial al Marii Adunări Naționale a Republicii Populare Române, anul I, nr. 13, (in Romanian) 29 decembrie 1952, p. 102.
  23. ^ Decretul Consiliului de Stat al Republicii Populare Romîne nr. 120 din 6 mai 1961 pentru conferirea medaliei „40 de ani de la înființarea Partidului Comunist din Romînia”, publicat în Buletinul Oficial al Marii Adunări Naționale a Republicii Populare Romîne, anul X, nr. 30, (in Romanian) 31 decembrie 1961, p. 390.
  24. ^ Decretul Consiliului de Stat al Republicii Populare Romîne nr. 831 din 5 noiembrie 1962 pentru conferirea „Ordinului Muncii” clasa I tovarășei Ana Toma, publicat în Buletinul Oficial al Marii Adunări Naționale a Republicii Populare Romîne, anul XI, nr. 21, (in Romanian) 6 noiembrie 1962, p. 185.
  25. ^ Decretul Consiliului de Stat al Republicii Populare Romîne nr. 509 din 18 august 1964 pentru conferirea unor ordine ale Republicii Populare Romîne, publicat în Buletinul Oficial al Marii Adunări Naționale a Republicii Populare Romîne, anul XIII, nr. 12, (in Romanian) 27 august 1964, p. 91.
  26. ^ Decretul Consiliului de Stat al Republicii Socialiste România nr. 155 din 4 mai 1971 privind conferirea titlului de „Erou al Muncii Socialiste Archived 1 July 2018 at the Wayback Machine, publicat în Buletinul Oficial al Republicii Socialiste România, anul VII, nr. 56, Partea I, joi (in Romanian) 6 mai 1971, p. 347.
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