“Ion Șiugariu” Memorial House

Ion Șiugariu, poet, was born on June 6, 1914 in the village of Baița. He was the first child of the family of the gold miner Ion Șugar and Floarea Șugar (née Griga), of the Greek-Catholic denomination. Due to the poor financial situation, Ion Șiugariu worked since childhood extracting and washing gold, and in 1928 he completed his primary studies in Băița and Valea Borcutului, then he went to Oradea, where he attended normal school and high school studies. The young man studied letters and philosophy at the University of Bucharest, and from 1934 he began to publish poems and literary chronicles in the magazines of the time. His debut was in the magazine “Observatorul din Beiuș”, with the poem “Hymn of the Youth”. In addition to his literary activity, he led the “Association of Refugee Students from Occupied Transylvania” during the Horthyist occupation of Northern Transylvania.

At the age of 31, on February 1, 1945, he was killed by bullets on the bridge over the Hron River in the town of Brezno in Czechoslovakia.

The “Ion Șiugariu” Memorial House was built in 1913 (north side), by the poet’s parents, and in 1925 they also built the room on the south side. The house is representative of the Chioar ethnographic area, the entrance being through the awning that served as a kitchen and living room. The room looking to the street was kept by the parents for guests, holidays and other family events. In 1969, Floarea Șugar donated the house to the community, to be transformed into a museum.