In 1948, the nascent communist regime banned sociological teaching, and Claudian resorted to teaching classes on child psychology at the Faculty of Medicine. He and his wife were arrested later that year. Zoe was released, but Claudian, arrested again in August 1952, was held in confinement, first at Aiud prison, then at the Peninsula and Poarta Albă labor camps, on the Danube–Black Sea Canal. Ion Claudian, meanwhile, escaped into the anti-communist maquis, joining up with Nicolae Dabija, before fleeing to the West in 1950.