Monument-spring “Cișmeaua General Georgescu P. Ion”
On the Romanian Army Day, marked annually on October 25, the monument “General Georgescu P. Ion’s Cemetery”, located in Valea Morilor Park, was re-inaugurated and consecrated in Chisinau.
It was originally installed in 1937, in honour of the victories of the Romanian Army in the battles of Mărăști and Mărășești in the First World War. The Cișmeaua was once known as “General Pion’s Spring” because General Pavel Ion Georgescu, who was called Pion for short, was the initiator of this monument.
Behind this monument there are now three plaques, which commemorate tragic events in our history. It is about the year 1940 – when the USSR conquered Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, Herta County and in the period from June 1940 to July 1941, several historical personalities were captured and tortured. Their bodies were found many years later in mass graves at the exit of the “Valley of the Mills” park.
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Who was General Pavel Ion Georgescu?
He was born on 25 December 1883 in Zănoaga (Romania) in a priest’s family.
He attended the “Carol I” National College in Craiova and the “Mihai Viteazul” High School in Bucharest, then the Military School of Artillery and Engineering (1904-1906) and finally the Faculty of Mathematics.
Military ranks: second lieutenant-1906, lieutenant-1910, captain-1914, major-1917, lieutenant-colonel-1920, colonel-1926, brigadier general-1935, major general-1942.
Military functions: teacher and commander of the Artillery School in Timișoara (1926-1928) and of the Army Arsenal (1930-1931), of the 1st Artillery Brigade in Chișinău until 1937, of the 20th Infantry Division in Tg. Mures (1937-1939), then of the 7th Territorial Corps Sibiu.
He was a professor of ballistics at the Polytechnic Institute of Timișoara.
In the First World War he distinguished himself in the battles of Cașin and Mărășești (Pion trench).
In the village of Seini (Satu Mare, Romania) he built an Orthodox church and in Zănoaga he erected a bust of Stephen the Great.
Between 1937 and 1939, as a division general, he was commander of the fortifications at Poarta Someșului. Also during this period he erected a living monument, made of 10,000 fir trees, on Comja Hill (650 m – Gutâiului Mountain), inscribed with the poet’s name – “Eminescu”. The cemetery of General Georgescu P. Ion (“PION” – as he was called, honorary citizen of Seini, post mortem) is visible from the plane, from the DE 58, towards Satu Mare.
On 1 September 1940, as commander of the 7th Territorial Corps, he and other officers took part in leading the demonstration in Sibiu against the Vienna Dictatorship.
He was decorated with several Romanian and foreign orders and medals.Since 1946 he has been under constant surveillance by the Securitate and has been arrested several times. He died in 1956.