her last name to Sîrbu upon her 18th birthday—though she also reconnected with her father's roots by learning Hungarian. She never fully recovered from the shock caused by the persecution of her parents; after 1968, she was awarded a pension from the Romanian state. Loti died in January 1987, followed by Victoria in December of that same year. Vera committed suicide in 1989. Never married, she was survived by three children from three different men, whose identities remain unknown. She had grown estranged from first-born daughter Sanda (died 2007), whom she regarded as a Securitate informant; another daughter moved to The Netherlands, where Foriș's great-granddaughter was born. Elena Pavel, who had since died in a prison fire, continued to be used as an asset in PCR propaganda for the entire period; her and Victoria's sister, Maria Sîrbu, was a professor at the University of Bucharest Faculty of Physics, where she sometimes spoke to her students about Elena's "combative firmness". A similar cult developed around Foriș's lover Tatiana Leapis-Bulan. Leapis-Bulan rose through the PCR ranks after the 1960s, owing to her inclusion in Elena Ceaușescu's intimate circle of friends. Notes References External links "Italian Communist Party Organ Reports Attack on Gheorghiu-Dej" (report on Foriș's rehabilitation), April 29, 1968, at Blinken Open Society Archives 1892 births 1946 deaths General Secretaries of the Romanian Communist Party Hungarian Communist Party politicians Romanian Comintern people Hungarian anarchists 20th-century journalists Hungarian journalists Romanian Marxist journalists Adevărul columnists Romanian newspaper editors Romanian propagandists Austro-Hungarian Army officers Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I Hungarian people of the Hungarian–Romanian War Romanian accountants Romanian trade unionists Inmates of Doftana prison Hunger strikers Fugitives wanted by Romania Romanian torture victims Romanian people of the Spanish Civil War Romanian World War II resistance members People from Brașov County Romanian people of Csángó descent Romanian politicians of Hungarian descent Romanian defectors Defectors to the Soviet Union Romanian expatriates in Ukraine Romanian expatriates in Russia Romanian expatriates in Germany Romanian people taken hostage Missing person cases in Romania 1940s missing person cases Assassinated Romanian politicians People murdered in Romania Deaths by beating in Romania Socialist Republic of Romania rehabilitations