Filimon Sârbu

Who was Filimon Sârbu?

Filimon Sârbu was a Romanian communist activist and anti-fascist militant executed by the pro-Nazi authorities during World War II. After the war, he was acclaimed as a hero by the communist government.

Sârbu was born into a family of workers in Herepeia, Transylvania. His father, a railway worker, was sacked in 1926 for his participation in the strikes of the early 1920s, and the family had to move to Constanţa by 1930. Due to lack of material means, the young Sârbu was forced to abandon school after completing primary education, and in October 1930 he started as an apprentice lathe operator at the Workshops of the Directorate of Maritime Ports in Constanţa. There he joined the worker's movement and came under communist influence, and in 1933 he was dismissed for his political opinions, being readmitted at his colleagues pressure. In that period he also took part in the meetings of the National Antifascist Committee, a front organization of the Communist Party of Romania, banned by the government in the 1920s. Arrested along other activists in 1936 during such an antifascist conference, he was condemned by a Military Tribunal to 6 months of jail.

In 1938 he was drafted in the Romanian Army and assigned to the border area of Carei. In August 1940 the area, along with all Northern Transylvania was awarded to Hungary. Sârbu's protests against the territorial settlement led to his disciplinary transfer to the 10th Mountain Hunters Battalion in Târnăveni. Discharged in April 1941, he rapidly reestablished contacts with the antifascist organizations, first in Braşov, then back in Constanţa.