This is the page saved on 1 November 2026. The page now is hofmanfund.org/en.html.
576 Russian Bibles, in one night.
Persecuted Christians
in Suceava, Rădăuți, and Iași
On the night of 18/19 October 1980, a checkpoint at Suceava stopped two cars. Seven sacks of Russian Bibles were in the trunks. That is how Canalul-80 begins. The statements and the files are here. You can open them.
Informers had a false name. Search here if someone in public office was found.
For the next generation
This site keeps the story of my father, Gheorghe Hofman, of my mother, Margareta Hofman, and of the Canalul-80 case of 1980.
It is a place for my sons, Danny and Johnny, for my two brothers, Dorel and Cornel, and for my four sisters, Dorina, Valerica, Mihaela, and Daniela, for any student, and for anyone who wants to understand what it cost to carry Bibles when it was forbidden.
This is my hope: when I am no longer here, my sons, my two brothers, my four sisters, and any student will carry the research on. The files should keep being opened, with patience, and with the page in hand.
The complete family archive stays private. Anyone who studies it under proper conditions writes to daniel@hofmanfund.org.
The map
A living archive. The map changes when a page arrives. A place marked as still being checked is not yet a verified stop. Have a page? Send it. It is read before it goes on the map.
Other maps: the road of the books · the people · after the arrest · the shelf · the Rădăuți searches
Florentin Clipa · 2026
BIBLIA ÎN ROMÂNIA COMUNISTĂ
His panel, with the map and the chapters. The words are his.
Keston College · 1982
Truths Which Cannot be Hidden
The 1981 ALRC report, reprinted in Religion in Communist Lands. Our summary, with their credit. “A trial in Botoșani” is their sentence.
Checked
What matches
The panel names Gheorghe Hofman of Rădăuți in Canalul-80. The trial title says 10 January 1981. The working transcription joins two terms into one year and six months for the sentence of that day. The certified copy is not in the house. The opening line says 1980. Part 7. On his map, Stânca Costești is the border site.
Credit. Dorin Dobrincu, in Omul evanghelic. O explorare a comunităților protestante românești, coordinated with Dănuț Mănăstireanu, Polirom, Iași, 2018, p. 177, writes the name “Gheorghe Hoffman” among the five arrested in Canalul-80. On p. 178 the book assigns four years, and the pardon of 22 August 1981, to Paul Gross. For Hofman, the working transcription joins two terms into one year and six months. The certified copy is not in the house. The printed sources set the sentences side by side. The passage cites Elis Neagoe-Pleșa and Liviu Pleșa, “Cultele neoprotestante din România în perioada 1975–1989,” in Adrian Nicolae Petcu (ed.), Partidul, Securitatea și cultele, 1945–1989, Editura Nemira, București, 2005, pp. 379–381.
Amnesty · Keston · CNSAS · 1981–1982
What others printed
My father, in four printed records. The length of the sentence stays open until the certified copy. Canalul-80, the Danube–Black Sea canal, EVANGHELISTUL, and BIBLIA are different names, set out on this page, with the cover names of informers and the official CNSAS page where they are searched.
For my brothers and sisters
My father’s persecution calendar
The letter and the dates are on their own page.
What this fund is
Hofman Fund is not a company. It is an open file: pages photographed at CNSAS, working transcriptions, kept current. A student or a researcher puts a hand on the page — the date, the age, the signature — not only on the story told 45 years later.
The family files are not on this page. Names of the living are not placed here without their word.
Canalul-80
Night of 18/19 October 1980, Suceava checkpoint: two cars with Alba plates, sacks of Russian Bibles from Karlsruhe. That opened Canalul-80. Gheorghe Hofman, a mechanic from Rădăuți, was taken on 31 October. In October 1980 he was 44. He was born on 22 March 1936. Margareta Hofman, his wife, was 41. She was born on 1 June 1939. The working transcription joins two terms into one year and six months. The prison was at Botoșani. The certified copy is not in the house: the printed sources. The state wrote illegal holding of foreign currency, 170 rubles in August 1978, and printed matter without authorization, not “Bible smuggling.” What is on paper, what someone stated, what others printed, and what still needs research stands separated, with each credit, on the sources. The maps hold the places and the calendar. In 1982 Keston College reprinted an ALRC report: the five, with the term the report wrote. The summary.
Unique files
On 30 October 1980 — the day before detention — the Militia took statements in the house. Declarations of the living do not sit on this page.
Photographs from the reading room are working copies. The certified copy is at CNSAS, request P 2551/2026. The family files are not on this page.
How to read
A Militia-journal statement is not a recruited informer (cover name, reports, a source stamp). Five people were tried. The family files are not on this door.
The source is the photograph of the page. The transcription is working text. Uncertain words sit in [brackets]. The Militia does the search and the declaration; the Securitate keeps the DUI and the telegrams.
Ethics
The parents and the grandmother may be published. The living need their word. Do not close the file with a verdict. The right answer is: here is the page, here is the date, here is what we do not yet know.
Write
Write to Daniel Hofman: daniel@hofmanfund.org. Class, paper, permissions. The classroom packet (90 min) sits apart: For faculty. The certified copy is requested at CNSAS, P 2551/2026.
A file for the archive is uploaded here: hofmanfund.org/trimite/. A zip, a PDF, a Word file, or any other file. Nothing is published before it is checked.