A councillor the voters deserve. Costache Caragață
He is modest. More modest than he should be. But that’s the way he is: modest and with a lot of common sense. In the February 1992 elections, the people of Vidra voted for him and elected him to the local council. He was then elected to the County Council by the local councillors of the municipality, the 4 towns and 59 villages. Of the 39 County Councillors elected by the people of Vidra.
Mr. Costache Caragață is not only a modest man with common sense. He is the embodiment of suffering. One of those political prisoners who suffered and forgave. For him, forgiveness was and is a prayer, a creed. May no one’s life be as hard, as tormented as his.
A year ago, Mr. Caragață showed me his prison notes. How disturbing! Once you’ve read them, the thoughts, the agony, stay with you for hours. And you wonder: God, how much a man can carry on his shoulders and in his soul! He showed me a notebook of poems he’d brought back from prison. He has a calligrapher’s handwriting. He knows many poems by heart.
When Mr. Costache Caragață speaks in the Permanent Delegation – and he rarely does – there is a church-like silence in the room. He speaks clearly, briefly and to the point. His last speech was last autumn. He spoke on behalf of the people of Vidra and asked for the support of the Permanent Delegation and the F.R.E. Focșani for the completion of the investment – the water supply to Tichiriș (…).
(Radu Borcea – Milcovul liber, no. 933, 10 November 1994, p. 5 apud Caietele tristeții. The Notes of a Teacher in Handcuffs for Free Children, edited by Gheorghe Nadoleanu, 2010, p. 241)